Читать книгу The Silent Woman - Rita - Страница 5

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The kitchen door opened abruptly, and the girl he had seen in the porch entered, carrying a lamp in her hand. She was a welcome sight to Rufus Myrthe.

"I'm glad to see you, lass!" he exclaimed. "I guess it's a bit lonesome here. That lady in the chimney-corner's not exactly a powerful conversationalist. What about a room, eh? Your father as good as promised you'd find me one. I've got a dry change in my satchel and I shouldn't object to getting inside of it."

She went to a cupboard and took out a candlestick. "If you follow me," she said, "I'll show 'ee the place. M'appen ye're not particular for a night. There's a power o' things as ye ha' gotten to do wi'out. Not a soul bides wi' us year's end to year's end."

"Oh, you won't find me particular," he said, cheerily, as he watched her bend to the flame, and light the candle. She addressed no word to the silent figure on the settee, but, making a sign to the young man, led him across a stone passage, and up a narrow staircase, dark and musty and smelling of damp. They came to a landing, running the length of the upper part of the house, and on which three doors opened. The girl unlatched one of them, and he followed her in. The floor was bare but clean. A small iron bedstead stood against the wall, covered with a patchwork quilt. A chair, a deal table, on which stood a ricketty glass, and another, containing a basin and jug to serve as a washstand, were all the furniture it contained; but a fire had been lit in the small iron grate, and the cheerful blaze of spluttering logs threw a welcome glow around the bare and homely place.

"Why, this is grand!" exclaimed the young fellow, delightedly. "Your father said you had no room for travellers. Why was that?"

"M'appen he didn't want ye to stay. I'd hard work to persuade him. I'll be getin' 'ee supper now. There's nought but porridge and a bit o' biled bacon."

"I'm too hungry to grumble at anything, so long as its food," said Rufus, and, being left to himself, straightway unstrapped the satchel from his shoulder, took out a few necessaries, and then hung his damp coat before the fire to dry. Warmed and comfortable once more, his wet, miry boots replaced by felt slippers, he piled on another log, and then left the room in search of the much-needed food.

He found the table laid in the kitchen. A bowl of smoking potatoes, another of stir-about, and a large piece of fat bacon, were flanked by a coarse meal loaf. The surly landlord was already seated. Moll pointed to a chair for their guest, and seated herself opposite. Involuntarily the young man glanced at the settee. The figure was still there. Before her was placed a small wooden table, on which stood a bowl of porridge and a cup of milk. Gratified by such a sign of humanity as the ability to partake of food, Rufus Myrthe fell to work on his own supper, giving out between whiles such information as to his history and his reasons for visiting the Peak country as might be of interest to his host. This was his story.

Fifty years ago, or thereabouts, a family named Marth, or Myrthe, had left a certain district in the Peak country and emigrated to America. The head of that family was married to a woman who owned a farm and some land. It was poor ground, and life meant a struggle, and she was glad enough to leave the country, taking with her her three children; a son of eighteen, and two daughters. Before leaving she gave the farm in charge to her brother. He was unmarried, and he promised to look after the place and send her money if ever there was any to be made out of it. From the day she left till the day she died never a word reached her. Her husband, meantime, prospered, and grew almost a wealthy man. The son married a Kentucky farmer's daughter. Rufus was their only child. When the grandmother died, she left a will telling of this place in England, and leaving it to her eldest grandson. Rufus was but a boy then, and his father never troubled much about things in the old country, though he would talk of the will, and chaff and joke about his son's "heirship."

"We were prosperous folk," continued Rufus, "and I, being by nature inclined to roving, tried my hands at all sorts of things. Trapping, hunting buffalo, fighting Indians, didn't seem to settle down nohow. I'm not two-and-twenty yet; but I guess I've seen and done things as would make your hair stand on end. Well, one day I took it into my head to come over to England and look up my property. I wrote and asked father whereabouts it lay. He said it was away down in a county called Derbyshire, but he'd mislaid the documents and couldn't quite call to mind just the spot where the property was located. However, as the whole county didn't seem to cover more ground than a good-sized ranch out West, I'd have no difficulty in finding it."

He paused here, and drank off a tumbler of whisky and water that the landlord proffered.

"To continue my story," he said, putting down the glass, "I've been just on two weeks tramping this said 'county.' We don't use such names where I come from, nor split our cleared land up into scraps that fit like a child's puzzle map. Well, the queer thing is that this farm's nowhere to be found. Clean disappeared, as if an earthquake had taken a fancy to it!"

He paused, and looked from the landlord's surly face to Moll's rose and white one.

"Clean disappeared!" he said slowly. "No such name seems known anywhere round from Stafford boundary to Kinder Scout. Fifty years is a fairish space of time, I reckon; enough to live in, die in, and be forgotten in. Still, it's kind o' queer that neither farm nor owner have left any tracks. You don't happen to know of any place twenty miles north, south, east, or west of this Peak district called the Marth Farm, I suppose?"

The man shook his head slowly. "Na," he drawled. "Niver heerd on't—to my knowledge."

"It's a bit surprising," said the young fellow thoughtfully. "Land and house and family don't usually disappear without some trace, generally speaking. But if this farm had been picked up and dropped straight into the sea, it couldn't have been lost more completely."

He pushed aside his plate, and the girl rose and began to collect the supper things to put them aside to wash. The young man moved his chair out of her way, and by doing so faced half-way to the settle. The Silent Woman was looking straight at him. Her eyes eager, wondering, full of question. He was so amazed that he remained staring at her, but her lids fell swiftly as a dropped curtain; the cold, impassive face took back its coldness and impassibility once more. So swift was the transformation that he felt half afraid his imagination was playing tricks with him. His host's voice broke the momentary silence. He was lighting his pipe, and asking the young man to follow his example. Nothing loth, Rufus produced a well-coloured briarwood and tobacco pouch. The two men drew up their chairs to the wide old chimney-place, and began to smoke. Moll went on washing the plates and bowls. The old sheep dog crept in and lay down beside the silent figure on the settle. Still silent, still motionless, she sat on; the lowered eyes always on the fire, the clasped hands, white and cold as stone, lying on the black folds of her gown.

"Your wife, I suppose?" said Rufus Myrthe, at last, curiosity getting the better of natural politeness.

The surly man nodded.

"Has she—I mean, is she always like this?" he asked, lowering his voice.

"Allus," said the man. "Don't 'ee take ony count o' it. She's struck."

"Struck!" echoed the young fellow wonderingly. "Do you mean paralysed?"

The surly man lifted his cold blue eyes from the glowing peat.

"I dunno," he said huskily. "It's a matter of ten year or so since she's spoke a word."

"Perhaps some grief or shock?" hazarded the young man, "I've heard of such things. Has she seen a doctor?"

"Doctor—no. I don't hold wi' doctors and their meddlin' ways and poison stuffs. She's had th' ould herb woman, but she couldn't do naught. 'Let her bide tew hersel',' was all her could say. She sleeps right eno' and takes her vittals, and bain't no trouble to Moll or I. We're used to her now."

"Moll is your daughter's name?"

"Yes."

"Rather a lonely life for her in such a desolate place as this?"

"I dunno as she thinks on't. There's work eno' for one pair o' hands, and time's short whin wark's to dew."

"I suppose you get more custom in the summer time?"

"Custom and this place doan't shake hands too often," said the man. "Nearest town is fifteen mile. Winter time, when snow do fall, we ha' to bide to oursels; not a sowl comes nigh to ha' a crack from Candlemas to St. Mark's Eve."

"If you get no custom, how do you manage to live?"

"That's more my bizness than yourn, I suppose," was the ungracious retort.

"Oh—ha, of course. I beg your pardon. I was naturally curious——"

He broke off abruptly, and again his eyes turned to the supple figure in its rough home-spun gown. The girl had put away the dishes and plates, and now drew out a spinning wheel and began to spin. To Rufus Myrthe the work and the wheel possessed the classic charm of ancient history. He had only read of them, never seen them. He smoked on in silence; his surly companion made no attempt to break it.

It was a strange scene; and one destined to play a part in his memory in years to come. The silent figure in its place on the ancient settle; the grim and forbidding face of the owner of the Inn; the wonderful, vivid beauty of the girl who spun her yarn and plied her distaff. And strangest of all to Rufus Myrthe was the fact of his own presence here—his own association with so incongruous a trio, as this family represented.

A whim had brought him to these wilds. Chance had led him to this Inn. But he was master of his actions. He could leave on the morrow did he wish. But this girl, this strangely beautiful product of nature set in these wild solitudes, what must life mean to her? What would it bring in the future? How could anything so beautiful have sprung from a pair so ill-mated and ill-favoured. He puzzled and wondered and surmised until his brain grew weary, and his tired eyes began to droop drowsily.

"I think I'll go to bed now," he said abruptly. "So good-night to you all."

"Ye'll be wantin' some breakfast, maybe?" observed his host.

"I shall so. Are you very early birds here?"

"Daybreak mostly finds us about. But there's no need for 'ee to stir theesel' so early. Moll here 'ull gie 'ye some vittals when ye want. Ye'll be away on yer travels betimes I daresay?"

"Yes. I have to make inquiries round about, as I told you."

"M'appen that land has changed owners. Things dew git like that i' course o' years."

"Perhaps," said Rufus Myrthe. "But I mean to try and get to the bottom of the mystery, if I can."

His eyes were on the gleaming hair of the girl at her spinning wheel. He did not see the quick glance, surprise and terror commingled, flashed at him from that motionless figure on the settle.

He did not see how the frozen calm of that strange face was broken up by the touch of sudden fear.