The Firm of Girdlestone Part 44

"Out of the mouths of babes and of sucklings!" he cried. "You are right. I spoke too warmly. It is my zeal for you which betrays me."

"The same zeal which made you tell me so many things which I now know to be untrue about Mr. Dimsdale," said Kate, waxing more fearless as her mind turned to her wrongs.

"You are becoming impertinent," he answered, and resumed his calculations in his note-book.

Kate cowered back into her corner again, while the train thundered and screeched and rattled through the darkness. Looking through the steamy window, nothing was to be seen save the twinkle here and there of the lights of the scattered country cottages. Occasionally a red signal lamp would glare down upon her like the bloodshot eye of some demon who presided over this kingdom of iron and steam. Far behind a lurid trail of smoke marked the way that they had come. To Kate's mind it was all as weird and gloomy and cheerless even as the thoughts within her.

And they were gloomy enough. Where was she going? How long was she going for? What was she to do when there? On all these points she was absolutely ignorant. What was the object of this sudden flight from London? Her guardian could have separated her from the Dimsdales in many less elaborate ways than this. Could it be that he intended some system of pressure and terrorism by which she should be forced to accept Ezra as a suitor. She clenched her little white teeth as she thought of it, and registered a vow that nothing in this world would ever bring her to give in upon that point. There was only one bright spot in her outlook. When she reached her destination she would at once write to Mrs. Dimsdale, tell her where she was, and ask her frankly for an explanation of their sudden silence. How much wiser if she had done so before. Only a foolish pride had withheld her from it.

The train had already stopped at one large junction. Looking out through the window she saw by the lamps that it was Guildford.

After another interminable interval of clattering and tossing and plunging through the darkness, they came to a second station of importance, Petersfield. "We are nearing our destination," Girdlestone remarked, shutting up his book.

This proved to be a small wayside station, illuminated by a single lamp, which gave no information as to the name. They were the only pa.s.sengers who alighted, and the train rolled on for Portsmouth, leaving them with their trunks upon the dark and narrow platform. It was a black night with a bitter wind which carried with it a suspicion of dampness, which might have been rain, or might have been the drift of the neighbouring ocean. Kate was numb with the cold, and even her gaunt companion stamped his feet and shivered as he looked about him.

"I telegraphed for a trap," said he to the guard. "Is there not one waiting?"

"Yes, sir; if you be Mister Girdlestone, there's a trap from the _Flyin'

Bull_. Here, Carker, here's your gentleman."

At this summons a rough-looking ostler emerged into the circle of light thrown by the single lamp and, touching his hat, announced in a surly voice that he was the individual In question. The guard and he then proceeded to drag the trunks to the vehicle. It was a small wagonette, with a high seat for the driver in front.

"Where to, sir?" asked the driver, when the travellers had taken their seats.

"To Hampton Priory. Do you know where that is?"

"Better'n two mile from here, and close to the railway line," said the man. "There hain't been no one livin' there for two year at the least."

"We are expected and all will be ready for us," said Girdlestone.

"Go as fast as you can, for we are cold."

The driver cracked his whip, and the horse started at a brisk trot down the dark country road.

Looking round her, Kate saw that they were pa.s.sing through a large country village, consisting of a broad main street, with a few insignificant offshoots branching away on either side. A church stood on one side, and on the other the village inn. The door was open and the light shining through the red curtains of the bar parlour looked warm and cosy. The clink of gla.s.ses and the murmur of cheerful voices sounded from within. Kate, as she looked across, felt doubly cheerless and lonely by the contrast. Girdlestone looked too, but with different emotions.

"Another plague spot," he cried, jerking his head in that direction.

"In town or country it is the same. These poison-sellers are scattered over the whole face of the land, and every one of them is a focus of disease and misery."

"Beg your pardon, sir," the surly driver observed, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g round in his seat. "That 'ere's the _Flyin' Bull_, sir, where I be in sarvice, and it ain't no poison-seller, but a real right down good house."

"All liquor is poison, and every house devoted to the sale of it is a sinful house," Girdlestone said curtly.

"Don't you say that to my maister," remarked the driver. "He be a big man wi' a ter'bly bad temper and a hand like a leg o' mutton. Hold up, will ye!"

The last remark was addressed to the horse, which had stumbled in going down a sharp incline. They were out of the village by this time, and the road was lined on either side by high hedges, which threw a dense shadow over everything. The feeble lamps of the wagonette bored two little yellow tunnels of light on either side. The man let the reins lie loose upon the horse's back, and the animal picked out the roadway for itself. As they swung round from the narrow lane on to a broader road Kate broke out into a little cry of pleasure.

"There's the sea!" she exclaimed joyfully. The moon had broken from behind the clouds and glittered on the vast silvery expanse.

"Yes, that's the sea," the driver said, "and them lights down yonder is at Lea Claxton, where the fisher-folk live; and over there," pointing with his whip to a long dark shadow on the waters, "is the Oilywoite."

"The what?"

"The Isle of Wight, he means," said Girdlestone. The driver looked at him reproachfully. "Of course," said he, "if you Lunnon folks knows more about it than we who are born an' bred in the place, it's no manner o' use our tryin' to teach you." With this sarcastic comment he withdrew into himself, and refused to utter another word until the end of their journey.

It was not long before this was attained. Pa.s.sing down a deeply rutted lane, they came to a high stone wall which extended for a couple of hundred yards. It had a crumbling, decaying appearance, as far as could be judged in the uncertain light. This wall was broken by a single iron gate, flanked by two high pillars, each of which was surmounted by some weather-beaten heraldic device. Pa.s.sing through they turned up a winding avenue, with lines of trees on either side, which shot their branches so thickly above them that they might have been driving through some sombre tunnel. This avenue terminated in an open s.p.a.ce, in the midst of which towered a great irregular whitewashed building, which was the old Priory. All below it was swathed in darkness, but the upper windows caught the glint of the moon and emitted a pallid and sickly glimmer. The whole effect was so weird and gloomy that Kate felt her heart sink within her. The wagonette pulled up in front of the door, and Girdlestone a.s.sisted her to alight.

There had been no lights or any symptoms of welcome, but as they pulled down the trunks the door opened and a little old woman appeared with a candle in her hand, which she carefully shaded from the wind while she peered out into the darkness.

"Is that Mr. Girdlestone?" she cried.

"Of course it is," the merchant said impatiently. "Did I not telegraph and tell you that I was coming?"

"Yes, yes," she answered, hobbling forward with the light. "And this is the young lady? Come in, my dear, come in. We have not got things very smart yet, but they will soon come right."

She led the way through a lofty hall into a large sitting-room, which, no doubt, had been the monkish refectory in bygone days. It looked very bleak and cold now, although a small fire sputtered and sparkled in the corner of the great iron grate. There was a pan upon the fire, and the deal table in the centre of the room was laid out roughly as for a meal.

The candle which the old woman had carried in was the only light, though the flickering fire cast strange fantastic shadows in the further corners and among the great oaken rafters which formed the ceiling.

"Come up to the fire, my dear," said the old woman. "Take off your cloak and warm yourself." She held her own shrivelled arms towards the blaze, as though her short exposure to the night air had chilled her.

Glancing at her, Kate saw that her face was sharp-featured and cunning, with a loose lower lip which exposed a line of yellow teeth, and a chin which bristled with a tuft of long grey hairs.

From without there came the crunching of gravel as the wagonette turned and rattled down the avenue. Kate listened to the sound of the wheels until they died away in the distance. They seemed somehow to be the last link which bound her to the human race. Her heart failed her completely, and she burst into tears.

"What's the matter then?" the old woman asked, looking up at her.

"What are ye crying about?"

"Oh, I am so miserable and so lonely," she cried. "What have I done that I should be so unhappy? Why should I be taken to this horrible, horrible place?"

"What's the matter with the place?" asked her withered companion.

"I don't see nought amiss with it. Here's Mr. Girdlestone a-comin'.

He don't grumble at the place, I'll warr'nt."

The merchant was not in the best of tempers, for he had had an altercation with the driver about the fare, and was cold into the bargain. "At it again?" he said roughly, as he entered. "It is I who ought to weep, I think, who have been put to all this trouble and inconvenience by your disobedience and weakness of mind."

Kate did not answer, but sat upon a coa.r.s.e deal chair beside the fire, and buried her face in her hands. All manner of vague fears and fancies filled her mind. What was Tom doing now? How quickly he would fly to her rescue did he but know how strangely she was situated!

She determined that her very first action next morning should be to write to Mrs. Dimsdale and to tell her, not only where she was, but all that had occurred. The reflection that she could do this cheered her heart, and she managed to eat a little of the supper which the old woman had now placed upon the table. It was a rough stew of some sort, but the long journey had given an edge to their appet.i.tes, and the merchant, though usually epicurean in his tastes, ate a hearty meal.

When supper was over the crone, who was addressed by Girdlestone as Jorrocks, led the way upstairs and showed Kate to her room. If the furniture of the dining-room had been Spartan in its simplicity, this was even more so, for there was nothing in it save a small iron bedstead, much rusted from want of use, and a high wooden box on which stood the simplest toilet requisites. In spite of the poverty of the apartment Kate had never been more glad to enter her luxurious chamber at home. The little carpetless room was a haven of rest where she would be left, for one night at least, to her own thoughts. As she lay in bed, however, she could hear far away the subdued murmur of Girdlestone's voice and the shrill tones of the old woman. They were in deep and animated converse. Though they were too far distant for her to distinguish a word, something told her that their talk was about herself, and the same instinct a.s.sured her that it boded her little good.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

THE MAN WITH THE CAMP-STOOL.

When she awoke in the morning it was some little time before she could realize where she was or recall the events which had made such a sudden change in her life. The bare, cold room, with the whitewashed walls, and the narrow bed upon which she lay, brought back to her the recollection of a hospital ward which she had seen in Edinburgh, and her first thought was that she had had some accident and had been conveyed to some such establishment. The delusion was only momentary, however, for her true situation came back to her at once with all its vague horror. Of the two, she would have preferred that her first impression had been correct.

The small window of her apartment was covered by a dirty muslin blind.

She rose and, drawing it aside, looked eagerly out. From what she had seen the night before she had hoped that this prison to which she had been conveyed might make amends for its loneliness by some degree of natural beauty. The scene which now met her eyes soon dispelled any expectations of the sort. The avenue with its trees lay on the other side of the house. From her window nothing was visible but a dreary expanse of bog-land and mudbanks stretching down to the sea. At high tide this enormous waste of dreariness and filth was covered by the water, but at present it lay before her in all its naked hideousness, the very type of dullness and desolation. Here and there a few scattered reeds, or an unhealthy greenish sc.u.m upon the mud, gave a touch of colour to the scene; but for the most part the great plain was all of the same sombre mud tint, with its monotony broken only by the white flecks where the swarms of gulls and kittiwakes had settled in the hope of picking up whatever had been left by the receding tide.

Away across the broad surface a line of sparkling foam marked the fringe of the ocean, which stretched away to the horizon.