The Shuttle Part 80

"If I were safe at home I should think I could not walk, but I can walk now--I can--I can--because I will bear the pain."

In such cottages there is always a door opening outside from the little bricked kitchen, where the copper stands. She would reach that, and, pa.s.sing through, would close it behind her. After that SOMETHING would tell her what to do--something would lead her.

She put her lame foot upon the floor, and rested some of her weight upon it--not all. A jagged pain shot up from it through her whole side it seemed, and, for an instant, she swayed and ground her teeth.

"That is because it is the first step," she said. "But if I am to be killed, I will die in the open--I will die in the open."

The second and third steps brought cold sweat out upon her, but she told herself that the fourth was not quite so unbearable, and she stiffened her whole body, and muttered some words while she took a fifth and sixth which carried her into the tiny back kitchen.

"Father," she said. "Father, think of me now--think of me! Rosy, love me--love me and pray that I may come home. You--you who have died, stand very near!"

If her father ever held her safe in his arms again--if she ever awoke from this nightmare, it would be a thing never to let one's mind hark back to again--to shut out of memory with iron doors.

The pain had shot up and down, and her forehead was wet by the time she had reached the small back door. Was it locked or bolted--was it? She put her hand gently upon the latch and lifted it without making any sound. Thank G.o.d Almighty, it was neither bolted nor locked, the latch lifted, the door opened, and she slid through it into the shadow of the grey which was already almost the darkness of night. Thank G.o.d for that, too.

She flattened herself against the outside wall and listened. He was having difficulty in managing Childe Harold, who snorted and pulled back, offended and made rebellious by his savagely impatient hand. Good Childe Harold, good boy! She could see the ma.s.sed outline of the trees of the spinney. If she could bear this long enough to get there--even if she crawled part of the way. Then it darted through her mind that he would guess that she would be sure to make for its cover, and that he would go there first to search.

"Father, think for me--you were so quick to think!" her brain cried out for her, as if she was speaking to one who could physically hear.

She almost feared she had spoken aloud, and the thought which flashed upon her like lightning seemed to be an answer given. He would be convinced that she would at once try to get away from the house. If she kept near it--somewhere--somewhere quite close, and let him search the spinney, she might get away to its cover after he gave up the search and came back. The jagged pain had settled in a sort of impossible anguish, and once or twice she felt sick. But she would die in the open--and she knew Rosalie was frightened by her absence, and was praying for her.

Prayers counted and, yet, they had all prayed yesterday.

"If I were not very strong, I should faint," she thought. "But I have been strong all my life. That great French doctor--I have forgotten his name--said that I had the physique to endure anything."

She said these things that she might gain steadiness and convince herself that she was not merely living through a nightmare. Twice she moved her foot suddenly because she found herself in a momentary respite from pain, beginning to believe that the thing was a nightmare--that nothing mattered--because she would wake up presently--so she need not try to hide.

"But in a nightmare one has no pain. It is real and I must go somewhere," she said, after the foot was moved. Where could she go?

She had not looked at the place as she rode up. She had only half-consciously seen the spinney. Nigel was swearing at the horses.

Having got Childe Harold into the shed, there seemed to be nothing to fasten his bridle to. And he had yet to bring his own horse in and secure him. She must get away somewhere before the delay was over.

How dark it was growing! Thank G.o.d for that again! What was the rather high, dark object she could trace in the dimness near the hedge? It was sharply pointed, is if it were a narrow tent. Her heart began to beat like a drum as she recalled something. It was the shape of the sort of wigwam structure made of hop poles, after they were taken from the fields. If there was s.p.a.ce between it and the hedge--even a narrow s.p.a.ce--and she could crouch there? Nigel was furious because Childe Harold was backing, plunging, and snorting dangerously. She halted forward, shutting her teeth in her terrible pain. She could scarcely see, and did not recognise that near the wigwam was a pile of hop poles laid on top of each other horizontally. It was not quite as high as the hedge whose dark background prevented its being seen. Only a few steps more. No, she was awake--in a nightmare one felt only terror, not pain.

"YOU, WHO DIED TO-DAY," she murmured.

She saw the horizontal poles too late. One of them had rolled from its place and lay on the ground, and she trod on it, was thrown forward against the heap, and, in her blind effort to recover herself, slipped and fell into a narrow, gra.s.sed hollow behind it, clutching at the hedge. The great French doctor had not been quite right. For the first time in her life she felt herself sinking into bottomless darkness--which was what happened to people when they fainted.

When she opened her eyes she could see nothing, because on one side of her rose the low ma.s.s of the hop poles, and on the other was the long-untrimmed hedge, which had thrown out a thick, sheltering growth and curved above her like a penthouse. Was she awakening, after all? No, because the pain was awakening with her, and she could hear, what seemed at first to be quite loud sounds. She could not have been unconscious long, for she almost immediately recognised that they were the echo of a man's hurried footsteps upon the bare wooden stairway, leading to the bedrooms in the empty house. Having secured the horses, Nigel had returned to the cottage, and, finding her gone had rushed to the upper floor in search of her. He was calling her name angrily, his voice resounding in the emptiness of the rooms.

"Betty; don't play the fool with me!"

She cautiously drew herself further under cover, making sure that no end of her habit remained in sight. The overgrowth of the hedge was her salvation. If she had seen the spot by daylight, she would not have thought it a possible place of concealment.

Once she had read an account of a woman's frantic flight from a murderer who was hunting her to her death, while she slipped from one poor hiding place to another, sometimes crouching behind walls or bushes, sometimes lying flat in long gra.s.s, once wading waist-deep through a stream, and at last finding a miserable little fastness, where she hid shivering for hours, until her enemy gave up his search. One never felt the reality of such histories, but there was actually a sort of parallel in this. Mad and crude things were let loose, and the world of ordinary life seemed thousands of miles away.

She held her breath, for he was leaving the house by the front door. She heard his footsteps on the bricked path, and then in the lane. He went to the road, and the sound of his feet died away for a few moments. Then she heard them returning--he was back in the lane--on the brick path, and stood listening or, perhaps, reflecting. He muttered something exclamatory, and she heard a match struck, and shortly afterwards he moved across the garden patch towards the little spinney. He had thought of it, as she had believed he would. He would not think of this place, and in the end he might get tired or awakened to a sense of his lurid folly, and realise that it would be safer for him to go back to Stornham with some clever lie, trusting to his belief that there existed no girl but would shrink from telling such a story in connection with a man who would brazenly deny it with contemptuous dramatic detail. If he would but decide on this, she would be safe--and it would be so like him that she dared to hope. But, if he did not, she would lie close, even if she must wait until morning, when some labourer's cart would surely pa.s.s, and she would hear it jolting, and drag herself out, and call aloud in such a way that no man could be deaf. There was more room under her hedge than she had thought, and she found that she could sit up, by clasping her knees and bending her head, while she listened to every sound, even to the rustle of the gra.s.s in the wind sweeping across the marsh.

She moved very gradually and slowly, and had just settled into utter motionlessness when she realised that he was coming back through the garden--the straggling currant and gooseberry bushes were being trampled through.

"Betty, go home," Rosalie had pleaded. "Go home--go home." And she had refused, because she could not desert her.

She held her breath and pressed her hand against her side, because her heart beat, as it seemed to her, with an actual sound. He moved with unsteady steps from one point to another, more than once he stumbled, and his angry oath reached her; at last he was so near her hiding place that his short hard breathing was a distinct sound. A moment later he spoke, raising his voice, which fact brought to her a rush of relief, through its signifying that he had not even guessed her nearness.

"My dear Betty," he said, "you have the pluck of the devil, but circ.u.mstances are too much for you. You are not on the road, and I have been through the spinney. Mere logic convinces me that you cannot be far away. You may as well give the thing up. It will be better for you."

"You who died to-day--do not leave me," was Betty's inward cry, and she dropped her face on her knees.

"I am not a pleasant-tempered fellow, as you know, and I am losing my hold on myself. The wind is blowing the mist away, and there will be a moon. I shall find you, my good girl, in half an hour's time--and then we shall be jolly well even."

She had not dropped her whip, and she held it tight. If, when the moonlight revealed the pile of hop poles to him, he suspected and sprang at them to tear them away, she would be given strength to make one spring, even in her agony, and she would strike at his eyes--awfully, without one touch of compunction--she would strike--strike.

There was a brief silence, and then a match was struck again, and almost immediately she inhaled the fragrance of an excellent cigar.

"I am going to have a comfortable smoke and stroll about--always within sight and hearing. I daresay you are watching me, and wondering what will happen when I discover you, I can tell you what will happen. You are not a hysterical girl, but you will go into hysterics--and no one will hear you."

(All the power of her--body and soul--in one leap on him and then a lash that would cut to the bone. And it was not a nightmare--and Rosy was at Stornham, and her father looking over steamer lists and choosing his staterooms.)

He walked about slowly, the scent of his cigar floating behind him.

She noticed, as she had done more than once before, that he seemed to slightly drag one foot, and she wondered why. The wind was blowing the mist away, and there was a faint growing of light. The moon was not full, but young, and yet it would make a difference. But the upper part of the hedge grew thick and close to the heap of wood, and, but for her fall, she would never have dreamed of the refuge.

She could only guess at his movements, but his footsteps gave some clue.

He was examining the ground in as far as the darkness would allow. He went into the shed and round about it, he opened the door of the tiny coal lodge, and looked again into the small back kitchen. He came near--nearer--so near once that, bending sidewise, she could have put out a hand and touched him. He stood quite still, then made a step or so away, stood still again, and burst into a laugh once more.

"Oh, you are here, are you?" he said. "You are a fine big girl to be able to crowd yourself into a place like that!"

Hot and cold dew stood out on her forehead and made her hair damp as she held her whip hard.

"Come out, my dear!" alluringly. "It is not too soon. Or do you prefer that I should a.s.sist you?"

Her heart stood quite still--quite. He was standing by the wigwam of hop poles and thought she had hidden herself inside it. Her place under the hedge he had not even glanced at.

She knew he bent down and thrust his arm into the wigwam, for his fury at the result expressed itself plainly enough. That he had made a fool of himself was worse to him than all else. He actually wheeled about and strode away to the house.

Because minutes seemed hours, she thought he was gone long, but he was not away for twenty minutes. He had, in fact, gone into the bare front room again, and sitting upon the box near the hearth, let his head drop in his hands and remained in this position thinking. In the end he got up and went out to the shed where he had left the horses.

Betty was feeling that before long she might find herself making that strange swoop into the darkness of s.p.a.ce again, and that it did not matter much, as one apparently lay quite still when one was unconscious--when she heard that one horse was being led out into the lane. What did that mean? Had he got tired of the chase--as the other man did--and was he going away because discomfort and fatigue had cooled and disgusted him--perhaps even made him feel that he was playing the part of a sensational idiot who was laying himself open to derision?

That would be like him, too.

Presently she heard his footsteps once more, but he did not come as near her as before--in fact, he stood at some yards' distance when he stopped and spoke--in quite a new manner.

"Betty," his tone was even cynically cool, "I shall stalk you no more.

The chase is at an end. I think I have taken all out of you I intended to. Perhaps it was a bad joke and was carried too far. I wanted to prove to you that there were circ.u.mstances which might be too much even for a young woman from New York. I have done it. Do you suppose I am such a fool as to bring myself within reach of the law? I am going away and will send a.s.sistance to you from the next house I pa.s.s. I have left some matches and a few broken sticks on the hearth in the cottage. Be a sensible girl. Limp in there and build yourself a fire as soon as you hear me gallop away. You must be chilled through. Now I am going."

He tramped across the bit of garden, down the brick path, mounted his horse and put it to a gallop at once. Clack, clack, clack--clacking fainter and fainter into the distance--and he was gone.

When she realised that the thing was true, the effect upon her of her sense of relief was that the growing likelihood of a second swoop into darkness died away, but one curious sob lifted her chest as she leaned back against the rough growth behind her. As she changed her position for a better one she felt the jagged pain again and knew that in the tenseness of her terror she had actually for some time felt next to nothing of her hurt. She had not even been cold, for the hedge behind and over her and the barricade before had protected her from both wind and rain. The gra.s.s beneath her was not damp for the same reason. The weary thought rose in her mind that she might even lie down and sleep.

But she pulled herself together and told herself that this was like the temptation of believing in the nightmare. He was gone, and she had a respite--but was it to be anything more? She did not make any attempt to leave her place of concealment, remembering the strange things she had learned in watching him, and the strange terror in which Rosalie lived.

"One never knows what he will do next; I will not stir," she said through her teeth. "No, I will not stir from here."