Читать книгу The Silent Woman - Rita - Страница 9

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Within an appreciable distance of the walled-in field, where the sheep had been grazing, the mist suddenly lifted.

Rufus Myrthe found the sight of the Inn a welcome one, despite its melancholy situation, and its unpleasant host. He hurried on till he reached the back entrance, seeing no sign of old "Luk" or any human creature. As he went within, he found a bright fire blazing in the wide chimney. Crouched before it was the queer old crone he had brought thither that morning. Moll was bustling about preparing a meal, and a fragrant smell of newly-baked oaten cakes pervaded the place. The surly master of the Inn was not visible, a matter for which Rufus Myrthe felt devoutly thankful.

"Why, ye're soaked to th' skin!" exclaimed the girl.

"I've never been anything else since I came to this part of the country," he answered. "And I'm hungry enough to empty your larder," he continued.

"I'll soon get 'ee summat," she said gravely. "But do 'ee go upstairs and change first. Feyther's took th' horse an' gone to Distly. He sed as how 'twere needful t' give notice o' th' death. And Dame theer, she had to cettify 'twer a fit, same as mither had suffered from afore."

She spoke in calm, measured accents, giving no token of grief. Rufus wondered if she was unfeeling, or only chilled by the suddenness of bereavement. He made no further remark, but went upstairs and changed his soaked garments, thankful that surly Dick Udale was absent, and wondering if any information respecting the past owners of the farm could be procured from the queer old crone, who seemed a fitting mate (as far as antiquity was concerned) for Luke Froggart.

Such types of longevity were quite novel to him, and he could not but feel interested in their experiences.

He went softly by that closed door, where the silence of years now meant the silence of eternity. He knew he should never learn the secret buried in that quiet breast, nor the reason of the terror of his questions and his name had caused her. The desire for that knowledge had leaped into a burning curiosity. Enough lay behind it to alter all his future, and he was young enough to defy Fate and believe in the impossible.

It was only when he found himself sitting at the table opposite to Moll that he felt his own history might in some way be destined to concern hers. The vague interest he had at first felt in her began to assume a new and responsible aspect. His questions, guarded as they were, led the old dame's tongue into channels of communicativeness that were veritable pitfalls. She threw light upon occurrences preceding Moll's birth, and taking many a queer turn and twist, as memory rambled between past and present, she slowly and surely came to the point that he desired. Yet then he only felt himself the poorer for the gain. Someone whose name in the Peak vernacular was almost unintelligible, and resembled nothing so much as "Marth's-son," had, at a far-off date, descended upon the farm and its uninviting acres of bog, and moor, and stone. No one seemed to have questioned the right of this individual. He stated he was a relative of the family, who by this time were all scattered abroad in America. A younger brother of this man lived with him, and the two worked the farm, with such help as old Luke Froggart could give. How they made it pay, or how they existed, was a mystery. Then, suddenly, came the discovery of coal, and a stir and bustle in the district. The change of the farmhouse into an Inn, with its queer sign of the Headless Woman, followed, and there the present owner brought his wife. From that time the place seemed marked for trouble. The brothers quarrelled continually, and one day the elder disappeared. Dick, the younger, gave out that he had left the country, having lost money over the coal venture. Again it seemed that no one disputed the explanation, or interfered with the new owner of the Inn and property. But the quality of the coal grew poorer and poorer, and finally the working of the mine was abandoned. The place was left to desolation, and the lonely Inn given over to a new loneliness. For the mistress never spoke, never gave any sign of life or interest, beyond the mechanical obligations of eating and sleeping. Her love for her child seemed quenched. The years took cruel toll of her beauty, and it faded into dull, colourless age. What she suffered, and why she suffered, no one knew. Her husband paid no heed to her, but lived his own selfish, dissolute life, absenting himself when the fancy took him, leaving her and the child to the tender mercies of old Luke, or Dame Dottery, the herb woman, their only neighbour.

So much Rufus learnt while he ate his supper and watched Moll's serious face, and felt the young manhood within him stirred to compassion for a lot so piteous and so unbecoming a maid of beauty and charms such as hers. Now and then, during the progress of the tale, he had produced a notebook and jotted down names, places, or incidents. Dates were beyond the old dame's capacity. She could reckon by such events as Christmas or Candlemas, a birth or death in the district, or a wake or a fair at some of the scattered country villages, but that was all. Such information was comparatively useless to Rufus Myrthe, and only complicated the facts he had gleaned and separated from the chaff of straying memories.

The night drew on apace. The old dame had finished and replenished the teapot placed at her disposal by Moll. She was apparently subject to sudden dozes, which would overtake her in the midst of a speech, and from which she would wake with a start, or a new piece of information not exactly relevant to the point at issue.

The girl sat by the fire knitting, and Rufus talked to her, and tried to gain some knowledge of her life, and of what it might become. He found she had received very little education, and that everything she knew of life beyond her own valley, or its nearest market town, had been gleaned from the cheap periodicals brought by travelling pedlars and treasured by her mother and herself for winter recreation in the long evenings.

"But now?" he questioned. "Now that you are alone, shall you stay on here? It is a dull, miserable place for one so young and so pretty," he added, softly.

The compliment did not affect her. Probably her looks had never awakened comment from men, or jealousy from women. She was quite unable to appraise them at their true feminine value.

"I s'pose I mun stay 'long o' feyther," she answered. "What else can I dew? I know nought o' ony trade, or ony sort o' life."

"But you would like to know? You would leave here if you could?"

"That's trew," she answered. "But I'll na' hev th' chance. There's th' house to mind, an' the hens; a man's a fule 'bout sich things as thim. I'm no sayin' but I'd love a bit o' schuling, an to read an' 'rite, same as mither cud dew. She war a wonderful clever scholar, I've heerd, tho' all I ivir seed her do war ta put things down on scraps o' paper times as feyther war out o' th' house. Scores an' scores o' thim she had, an' 'ud hide 'em away. I nivir cud see whar she put thim. It seemed she war timorous like o' bein' found out."

Rufus' brain stood suddenly at "attention."

He thought of the mysterious silence, the mysterious life, and the mysterious dying words of that strange woman. Might she have left any explanation behind her? Might it be possible that what she had written would throw a light on his lost heritage? He was convinced that he had found the right place at last. But to prove that, and so prove his own claim to it, was a totally different matter. So long a silence followed the girl's last words that the ticking of the clock in the corner became an audible emphasis of the fact. She glanced at him from time to time, wondering at his absorbed face. The old woman slumbered soundly in the chimney corner. The fire lapsed from transient spurts and splashes to a dull red glow.

"Feyther's late," observed Moll, at last, as the clock struck 8. "M'appen he'll ha' to bide th' night at Distly."

Rufus started. It struck him as odd that he should be left as guardian of the lonely Inn and its lovely mistress; for the ancient crone could scarcely be looked upon as a protectress.

"I mun go an' shut oop th' shutters at th' front," continued the girl.

"Let me help you," he said eagerly. And as she made no objection they proceeded to bolt the door leading into the porch, and shutter the window of the bar. The girl carried a candle with her, and its faint light threw up the shadowy corners, and queer, twisting passages, and lent an added mystery to the quaint old house. He noted that the front room, once the parlour, had been shut off by a wooden doorway, which was locked and bolted. The girl told him she had no recollection of its ever being used since her mother's seizure and subsequent isolation. It struck Rufus Myrthe that he would like to explore this portion of the old farmhouse for himself, but Moll had no knowledge of where the key was kept, and he had to give up the idea. They retraced their steps to the kitchen, and the girl fastened the outer door, but lit a lamp, and placed it in the window looking towards the moor.

"M'happen he'll cum; an' if so, 'twill serve to show th' way," she observed.

"But you'll have to get up to let him in," said Rufus.

"Yes, o' course," she said simply. "I've allus done it, fair times an' sich like. If he be drunk, he'll lay i' th' kitchen till mornin'. I bain't feered o' him now, as I'd used to be."

"What a life for you! How can you bear it?"

"I dunno," she said, with a little catch of her breath, that was half a sob. "I'll miss mither, I'm thinkin'. Tho' she'd nivir speak, yet 'twar a sort o' comfort to feel she war theer; an' I'd got to know th' look o' her eyes, an' her ways an' her wants. It 'ull be terrible lonesome wi'out her."

"I wish you'd come away! I wish you'd let me help you! I hate to think of leaving you to such a life, to such a father! If I put you to a school for a year or two, and then had you sent out to America, over the sea, where I come from, wouldn't you like that?"

"Like it!" Her eyes dilated. She drank in wonders of possibility with thirsting lips. "But it cudna be. It's tew bootiful to hope for 't."

"It could be; it shall be, if you wish. Your father has no right to bury you alive in a place like this; to deny you education, freedom, the rights of womanhood and beauty such as yours. It wouldn't be allowed in the land I come from. Why should it be allowed here?"

The old crone in the chimney corner stirred herself drowsily, disturbed by the raised and eager voices. Her bleared eyes surveyed the two figures, and a cunning gleam came into their depths.

"Th' ould ways is th' new ways," she muttered. "An' th' new is th' ould. But th' beauties allus get th' best o't."

Moll started and looked round.

"W'har'll ye sleep th' night, Dame?" she asked.

"Mak' me a bed on th' settle yonder. A rug an a blanket be all I want."

"An' I'll stay i' th' chair an' keep 'ee company. Maybe feyther'll come home. He sayed as 'ow he'd try if 'twar ivir so late."

"He'll na cross th' moor by th' ould mine arter dark, an' I knaw aught o' him," said the crone. "They dew say as th' horse an' rider ha' bin seen theer again, an' that bodes mischance, as all hereabouts dew knaw."

Moll shivered and grew pale. The young man turned eagerly. "Do you really mean that folk believe its haunted?" he cried.

"Folks mun believe what they've seen an' herd o' fur thesselves," said the ancient dame. "A place dunna get a bad name wi'out a bad cause."

Despite himself, Rufus felt a queer thrill run through his veins. He remembered the weird aspect of the disused mine; the weird cry that had startled him. He thought of the dead woman lying upstairs, and of her warning. Then his eyes fell on the beautiful girl, condemned to live among such surroundings; a prisoner for life in this dismal place.

"I don't care. I'll stay on. I'll see this thing through," he said to himself. "If there's wrong been done, I'll set it right. If I'm good for aught, I'm going to help this poor child to something brighter and better than her life here has been."

He felt lighter-hearted and more resolute after he had thus determined, but he said nothing more to Moll. She gave him a candlestick, and he bade her good-night. As he passed the closed door of the dead woman's room a vivid desire to look once more on that strange face took possession of him. He tried the handle and it gave at his touch. He stood on the threshold, and, holding up the candle on a level with his head, he looked across the room at the shrouded outline of the silent figure.

As he looked the desire to see the dead face grew stronger. He went slowly across to the bed, and with one hand gently lifted the sheet. Marble white, and strangely beautiful, were the uncovered features, set in silvery masses of rippling hair, unconcealed now by the disfiguring cap. Beautiful, yet stamped even in death by a sorrow unutterable, the dead face lay on the pillow, and through the half-closed lids the eyes seemed still to gaze as they had gazed in life. A shudder ran through the young man's frame, strong of nerve as he deemed himself. He hastily replaced the sheet and turned away. As he did so there thrilled through the silence a sound, half-moan, half-cry, wholly weird and terrifying. He started so violently that the candle fell to the ground. Before he could seize it the flame was extinguished.

He had to grope for a few minutes to find its whereabouts. At last he seized it, but as he rose to his feet a light flashed through the window. With a sudden instinct, for which he could not account, he drew back to the curtained side of the bed. The heavy, old-fashioned draperies kept him out of sight. Once more the light flashed out. Then he heard the window tried and opened. Curiosity overpowered his first alarm. He peered cautiously through the curtain at the head of the bed.

He saw a lantern, evidently held by some hand invisible from his point of espial. The light stole in, a long, bright ray across the space between window and bed. It fell on the white sheet and stirless form. Rufus Myrthe's eyes followed the line of light. Peering through the open window was a strange, ghastly face. It remained there for a moment, then, with a repetition of that low wail, it thrust itself into the opening hollow of the casement. Head and shoulders showed for an instant; then the light dipped and darkened as the lantern descended. There fell on the listener's strained ear the soft, uneven hop made by some creature whose lower limbs were apparently maimed, or wanting. Two or three of these hops brought the mysterious intruder to the side of the bed opposite to where Rufus stood concealed by the heavy damask folds.

He leant back against the wall. Once more the slide of the lantern was lifted, and the light thrown across the sheeted form. Then Rufus Myrthe saw a strange, dwarfed creature spring on the bed. With a cry scarcely human, it snatched away the sheet from the dead woman's face.