Trevlyn Hold Part 62

There appeared to be no help for it; Bridget had felt this from the first; she should have to confess to her rustic admirer's stolen visit.

And Bridget, whilst liking him in her heart, was intensely ashamed of him, from his being so much younger than herself.

"Ma'am, I only came into it for a minute to speak to a young boy; my cousin, Jim Sanders. Hatch came into the kitchen and said Jim wanted to see me, and I came out. That's all--if it was the last word I had to speak," she added, with a burst of grief.

"And what did Jim Sanders want with you?" pursued Miss Diana, sternly.

"It was to show me this puppy," returned Bridget, not choosing to confess that the small animal was brought as a present. "Jim seemed proud of it, ma'am, and brought it up for me to see."

A very innocent confession; plausible also; and Miss Diana saw no reason for disbelieving it. But she was one who liked to be on the sure side, and when corroborative testimony was to be had, did not allow it to escape her. "One of you find Hatch," she said, addressing the maids.

Hatch was found with the men-servants and labourers, who were tumbling over each other in their endeavours to carry water to the rick under the frantic directions of their master. He came up to Miss Diana.

"Did you go into the kitchen, and tell Bridget Jim Sanders wanted her in the rick-yard?" she questioned.

I think it has been mentioned once before that this man, Hatch, was too simple to answer anything but the straightforward truth. He replied that he did so; had been called to by Jim Sanders as he was pa.s.sing along the rick-yard near the stables, who asked him to go to the house and send out Bridget.

"Did he say what he wanted with her?" continued Miss Diana.

"Not to me," replied Hatch. "It ain't nothing new for that there boy to come up and ask for Bridget, ma'am. He's always coming up for her, Jim is. They be cousins."

A well-meant speech, no doubt, on Hatch's part; but Bridget would have liked to box his ears for it there and then. Miss Diana, sufficiently large-hearted, saw no reason to object to Mr. Jim's visits, provided they were paid at proper times and seasons, when the girl was not at her work. "Was any one with Jim Sanders?" she asked.

"Not as I saw, ma'am. As I was coming back after telling Bridget, I see Jim a-waiting there, alone. He----"

"How could you see him? Was it not too dark?" interrupted Miss Diana.

"Not then. Bridget kep' him waiting ever so long afore she came out. Jim must a' been a good half-hour altogether in the yard; 'twas that, I know, from the time he called me till the blaze burst out. But Jim might have went away afore that," added Hatch, reflectively.

"That's all, Hatch; make haste back again," said Miss Diana. "Now, Bridget, was Jim Sanders in the yard when the flames broke out, or was he not?"

"Yes, ma'am, he was there."

"Then if any suspicious characters got into the rick-yard, he would no doubt have seen them," thought Miss Diana, to herself. "Do you know who did set it on fire?" she impatiently asked.

Bridget's face, which had regained some of its colour, grew white again.

Should she dare to tell what she had heard about Rupert? "I did not see it done," she gasped.

"Come, Bridget, this will not do," cried Miss Diana, noting the signs.

"There's more behind, I see. Where's Jim Sanders?"

She looked around as she spoke but Jim was certainly not in sight. "Do you know where he is?" she sharply resumed.

Instead of answering, Bridget was taken with a fresh fit of shivering.

It amazed Miss Diana considerably.

"Did Jim do it?" she sharply asked.

"No, no," answered Bridget. "When I got to Jim he had somehow lost the puppy"--glancing down at her ap.r.o.n--"and we had to look about for it. It was just in the minute he found it that the flames broke forth. Jim was showing of it to me, ma'am, and started like anything when I shrieked out."

"And what has become of Jim?"

"I don't know," sobbed Bridget. "Jim seemed like one dazed when he turned and saw the blaze. He stood a minute looking at it, and I could see his face turn all of a fright; and then he flung the puppy into my arms and scrambled off over the palings, never speaking a word."

Miss Diana paused. There was something suspicious in Jim's making off in the manner described; it struck her so at once. On the other hand she had known Jim from his infancy--known him to be harmless and inoffensive.

"An honest lad would have remained to see what a.s.sistance he could render towards putting it out, not have run off in that cowardly way,"

spoke Miss Diana. "I don't like the look of this."

Bridget made no reply. She was beginning to wish the ground would open and swallow her up for a convenient half-hour; wished Jim Sanders had been buried also before he had brought this trouble upon her. Miss Diana, Madam, and the young ladies were surrounding her; the maid-servants began to edge away suspiciously; even Edith had dismissed her hysterics to stare at Bridget.

Cris Chattaway came leaping past them. Cris, who had been leisurely making his way to the Hold when the flames broke out, had just come up, and after a short conference with his father, was now running to the stables. "You are a fleet horseman, Cris," Mr. Chattaway had said to him: "get the engines here from Barmester." And Cris was hastening to mount a horse, and ride away on the errand.

Mrs. Chattaway caught his arm as he pa.s.sed. "Oh, Cris, this is dreadful!

What can have caused it?"

"What?" returned Cris, in savage tones--not, however, meant for his mother, but induced by the subject. "Don't you know what has caused it?

He ought to swing for it, the felon!"

Mrs. Chattaway in her surprise connected his words with what she had just been listening to. "Cris!--do you mean----It never could have been Jim Sanders!"

"Jim Sanders!" slightingly spoke Cris. "What should have put Jim Sanders into your head, mother? No; it was your favoured nephew, Rupert Trevlyn!"

Mrs. Chattaway broke into a cry as the words came from his lips. Maude started a step forward, her face full of indignant protestation; and Miss Diana imperiously demanded what he meant.

"Don't stop me," said Cris. "Rupert Trevlyn was in the yard with a torch just before it broke out, and he must have set it on fire."

"It can't be, Cris!" exclaimed Mrs. Chattaway, in accents of intense pain, arresting her son as he was speeding away. "Who says this?"

Cris twisted himself from her. "I can't stop, mother, I say. I am going for the engines. You had better ask my father; it was he told me. It's true enough. Who _would_ do it, except Rupert?"

The shaft lanced at Rupert struck to the heart of Mrs. Chattaway; unpleasantly on the ear of Miss Diana Trevlyn: was anything but agreeable to the women-servants. Rupert was liked in the household, Cris hated. One of the latter spoke up in her zeal.

"It's well to try to throw it off the shoulders of Jim Sanders on to Mr.

Rupert! Jim Sanders----"

"And what have you to say agin' Jim Sanders?" interrupted Bridget, fearing, it may be, that the crime should be fastened on him. "Perhaps if I had spoken my mind, I could have told it was Mr. Rupert as well as others could; perhaps Jim Sanders could have told it, too. At any rate, it wasn't----"

"What is that, Bridget?"

The quiet but imperative interruption came from Miss Diana. Excitement was overpowering Bridget. "It was Mr. Rupert, ma'am; Jim saw him fire it."

"Diana! Diana! I feel ill," gasped Mrs. Chattaway, in faint tones. "Let me go to him; I cannot breathe under this suspense."

She meant her husband. Pressing across the crowded rick-yard--for people, aroused by the sight of the flames, were coming up now in numbers--she succeeded in reaching Mr. Chattaway. Maude, scared to death, followed her closely. She caught him just as he had taken a bucket of water to hand on to some one standing next him in the line, causing him to spill it. Mr. Chattaway turned with a pa.s.sionate word.

"What do you want here?" he roughly asked, although he saw it was his wife.

"James, tell me," she whispered. "I felt sick with suspense, and could not wait. What did Cris mean by saying it was Rupert?"