Читать книгу Shrewsbury - Stanley John Weyman - Страница 8

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But I was going to cry and did, breaking down like a child; and that not so much at the thought of the desperate strait to which she had brought me--though this was no other than the felon's dock, with the prospect of disgrace, and to be whipped or burned in the hand, at the best, and if I had my benefit--but at the sudden conviction, which came upon me, perfect and overwhelming, that my mistress, for whom I had risked so much, did not love me! In no other way, and on no other theory, could I explain callousness so complete, thoughtlessness so cruel! Nor did her next words tend to heal the mischief, or give me comfort.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, flouncing from me with impatient contempt, and walking on the other side of the way, "if you are going to be a cry-baby, thank you for nothing! I thought you were a man!" And she began to hum an air.

"My God! I don't think you care!" I sobbed, aghast at her insensibility.

"Care?" she retorted indifferently, swinging her visor in her hand. "For what?"

"For me! Or for anything!"

With a coolness that appalled me, she finished the verse she was humming; then, "Your finger hurts, therefore you are going to die!" she said, with a sneer. "You see the fire and therefore you must be burned. Why, you have the courage of a hen! A flea! A mouse! You are not worthy the name of a man."

"I am man enough to be hanged," I answered miserably.

"Hanged?" quoth she, quite cheerfully. "Do you think that man was ever hanged for three guineas?"

"Ay, scores," I said, "and for less!"

"Then they must have been cravens like you!" she retorted, perfectly well satisfied with her answer. "And spun their own ropes. Come, silly, cheer up! A great many things may happen in a week! And if that vixen is back under a week, I will eat her!"

"A week won't make three guineas," I said dolefully.

"No, but a good heart will," she rejoined. "And not three but thirty! Only," she continued, looking askance at me, "you have not the spirit of a man. You are just Tumbledown Dick, as they say, and as well named as nine-pence!"

It seemed inconceivable to me that she could jest so merrily and carry herself so gaily, after such a loss; and I stopped short in sudden hope and new-born expectation; and peered at her, striving to read her thoughts. "I don't believe you have lost them!" I exclaimed at last.

"Every groat, Dick!" she answered, curtly--yet still in the best of spirits. "Never doubt that!"

On which it was not wonderful that my disappointment and her cheerfulness agreed so ill, that we came to bitter words, and beginning by calling one another "Thankless," and "Clutch-penny," rose presently to "Fool," and "Jade"; and eventually parted on the latter at the garden fence; where Dorinda, so far from lingering as on the former night, flounced from me in a passion, and left me without a single word of regret. How miserably after that I stole to bed, and how wakefully I tossed in the close garret, I cannot hope to convey to my readers; suffice it that a hundred times I cursed the folly that had led me to ruin, a hundred times went hot and cold at thought of the dock and the gallows; and yet amid all found in Dorinda's heartlessness the sharpest pain. I felt sure now, and told myself continually, that she had never loved me; therefore--at the time it seemed to follow--I deemed my own love at an end and cast her off; and heaping the sharpest reproaches on her head, found my one sweet consolation--whereat I wept miserably--in composing a last dying speech and confession that should soften at length that obdurate bosom, and break that unfeeling heart.

But with the day, and the rising to imminent terrors and hourly fear of detection, came first regret, then self-reproach--lest I too should be somewhat in fault--then a revival of passion; lastly, a frantic yearning to be reconciled to the only person to whom I could speak freely, or who knew the danger and strait in which I stood. My heart melting like water at the thought, I was ready to do anything or say anything, to abase myself to any depth, in order to regain her favour and have her advice; and the absence of Mr. and Mrs. D----, and Mrs. Harris's easiness rendering it a matter of no difficulty to seek her, in the course of the afternoon I took my courage in my hands and went into the next house. There I found only Mrs. Harris.

"The little slut has stepped out," she said, looking up from the pot over which she was stooping. "She asked leave for half an hour and has been gone an hour. But it is the way of the wenches all the world over. Do you beware of them, Mr. Price," she continued, eyeing me, and laughing jollily.

I made some trifling answer; and returning to my own domain, with all the pangs of loneliness added to those of terror, sat down in the dingy, dreary taskroom and abandoned myself to bitter forebodings. She did not, she never could have loved me! I knew it and felt it now. Yet I must think of her or go mad. I must think of her or of the cart and cord; and so, through the hours that followed, I had only eyes for the next garden, and ears for her voice. The boys and their chattering, and the necessity I was under of playing my part before them, well-nigh mastered me. For, at any hour, on any day, while I sat there among them, Mr. and Mrs. D---- might return, and the loss be discovered; and yet, and though time was everything, all the efforts I made to see Jennie or get speech with her failed; and of myself I seemed to be unable to think out any plan or way of escape.

I am sure that the most ascetic, could he have weighed the tortures of those four days during which I sat surrounded by the boys, and now making frantic efforts to appear myself, now sunk in a staring, pale-faced lethargy of despair, would have deemed them a punishment more than commensurate with my guilt. The unusual air of peace and quietness with which Mrs. D----'s absence invested the school had no more power to soothe me than the presence of Mrs. Harris, nodding over her plain-stitch in the next garden, availed to banish the burning gusts of fear that at times parched my skin. At length, on the fifth day, the immediate warning of coming judgment arrived in the shape of a letter announcing that my employer would return (D.V.) by the night waggon, which in the ordinary course was due to reach Ware about six next morning.

At that I could stand the strain no longer, but flinging appearance and deception to the winds, I rose from the class I was pretending to teach, and in a disorder I made no effort to suppress, followed Mrs. Harris; who, having declared the news, was already waddling back to the next house. She started at sight of me in her train--as she well might, for it was the busiest time of the day; then asked if anything ailed me.

"No," I said. "I want a word with Jennie."

"Do you?" quoth she, looking hard at me. "So, it would seem, do a good many young fellows. She is a nice handful if ever there was one."

"Why?" I stammered.

"Why?" she answered in a tone very sharp for her. "Why, because--but what have you to do with Jennie, young man?"

"Nothing," I said.

"Then have nothing," she answered promptly, and shook her sides at her sharpness. "That is no puzzle! And as it is no more than half-past ten, and I hear your boys rampaging like so many wild Irishmen--suppose you go back to them, young man!"

I obeyed; but whatever effect her warning might have had earlier--and I shrewdly suspect that it would have affected me as much as water affects a duck's back--it came too late; my one desire now being to see the girl, even as my one hope lay in her advice. Nine had struck that evening, however, and night had fallen, and I grown fairly sick with fear, before my efforts were rewarded, and stealing into the garden on a last desperate search--I think for the twentieth time--I came on her standing in the dusk, beside the fence where I had so often met her.

I sprang to her side, relief at my heart, reproaches on my lips; but it was only to recoil at sight of her face, grown hard and old and pinched, and for the moment almost ugly. "Why, child!" I cried, forgetting my own trouble. "What is it?"

She laughed without mirth, looking at me strangely. "What do you suppose?" she said huskily, and I could see that fear was on her. "Do you think that you are the only one in danger?"

"How?" I exclaimed.

"How?" she replied in a tone of mockery. "Why, do you suppose that stockings and shoes are the only things that cost money? Or that vizor masks, and gloves and hoods grow on bushes? Briefly, fool, if you can give me four guineas, I am saved. If not----"

"My God!" I cried, horror-stricken.

"If not," she continued hardily, "you have taught me to read, and that may save my neck. I suppose I shall be sent to the plantations, to be beaten weekly, and work in the sun, and----"

"Four guineas!" I groaned.

"Yes, seven in all!" she answered with a sneer. "Have you got them?"

"No, nor a groat!" I answered, overwhelmed by the discovery that instead of giving help she needed it. "Not a penny!"

"Then it must be got!" she answered fiercely. "It must be got!" and as she repeated the words, she dropped her mocking tone, and spoke with feverish energy. "It must be got, Dick!" and she seized my hands and held them. "It must be, and can be, if you have a spark of spirit, if you are not the poor mean thing I sometimes think you. Listen! Listen! In the old man's room upstairs--the door is locked and double-locked, I have tried it--are sixty guineas, in a bag! Sixty guineas, in a drawer of the old bureau by the bed!"

"It is death," I cried feebly, recoiling from her as I spoke. "It is death! I dare not! I dare not do it!"

"Then we hang! We hang, man!" she answered fiercely. "You and I! Will it be better to hang for a lamb than a sheep? For seven guineas than for sixty?"

"But if we take it, what shall we be the better for it?" I said weakly. "He returns in the morning."

"By the morning, given the money, we shall be a score of miles away!" she answered, flinging her arms round my neck, and hanging on my breast, while her hot breath fanned my cheek. No wonder I felt my brain reel, and my will melt. "Away from here, Dick," she repeated softly. "Away---and together!"

Yet I made an effort to withstand her. "You forget the door," I said. "If the door is locked, and Mrs. Harris sleeps in the next room, how can it be done?"

"Not by the door, but by the window," she replied. "There is a ladder in the second garden from this; and the latch of the window is weak. The old fool indoors sleeps like a hog. By eleven she will be sound. And oh, Dick!" my mistress cried, breaking down on a sudden and snatching my hands to her bosom, "will you see me shamed? Play the man for ten minutes only--for ten minutes only, and by morning we shall be safe, and far from here! And--and together, Dick! Together!"

Was it likely, I ask, was it possible that I should long resist pleading such as this? That holding her in my arms, in the warm summer night, with her hair on my breast, while the moon sailed overhead and a cricket chirped in the wall hard by--was it likely or possible, I say, that I should steel my heart against her; that I should turn from the cup of pleasure, who had tasted as yet so few delights, and drudged and been stinted all my life? Whose appetite had known no daintier relish than the dull round of dumpling and bacon, or at the best salt meat and spinach; and who for sole companionship had been shut in, June days and December nights alike, with a band of mischievous boys, whom the ancients justly called genus improbum. At any rate I did not; to my shame, great or small, according as I shall be harshly or charitably judged--I did not; but with a beating heart and choked voice, I gave my word and left her; and an hour later I crept down the creaking stairs for the last time, guilty and shivering, a bundle in my hand, and found her waiting for me in the old place.

I confess that the flurry of my spirits in this crisis was such as to disturb my judgment; and my passion for my mistress being no longer of the higher kind, these two things may account for the fact that I felt no wonder or repulsion when she explained to me, coolly and in detail, where the bureau stood, and in what part of it lay the money; even adding that I had better bring away a pair of silver candlesticks which I should find in another place. By the time she had made these things clear to me, the favourable moment was come; the lights of the town had long been extinguished, and the house obscuring the moon cast a black shadow on the garden, that greatly seconded our movements. Yet for myself, and though all went well with us, I trembled at the faintest sound, and started if a leaf stirred; nay, to this day I willingly believe that the smallest trifle, a light at a window or a distant voice, would have deterred me from the adventure. But nothing occurred to hinder or alarm; and the darkness cloaking us only too effectually, and my accomplice directing me where to find the ladder, I fetched it, and with her help thrust it over the fence and climbed over after it.

This was a small thing, the worst being to come. The part of the garden under the wall of the house was paved; it was only with the greatest exertion therefore and the utmost care that we could raise the ladder on it without noise; and but for the surprising strength which Jennie showed, I doubt if we should have succeeded, my hands trembled so violently. In the end we raised it, however; the upper part fell lightly beside the second floor casement, and Jennie whispered to me to ascend.

I had gone too far now to retreat, and I obeyed, and had mounted two steps, when I heard distinctly--the sound coming sharp and clear through the night--the shod hoof of a horse paw the ground, apparently in the road beyond the house. Scared by such a sound at such a time, I slid rapidly down into Jennie's arms. "Hush!" I cried. "Did you hear that? There is someone there!"

But angered by my sudden descent which had come near to knocking her down, she whispered in a rage that I was either the biggest fool or the poorest craven in the world. "Go up! Go up!" she continued fiercely, almost striking me in her excitement. "There are sixty guineas awaiting us up there--sixty guineas, man, and you budge, because a horse stirs."

"But what is it doing there?" I remonstrated. "A horse, Jennie--at this time of night!"

"God knows!" she answered. "What is it to us?"

Still I lingered a moment, unwilling to ascend; but hearing nothing, and thinking I might have been mistaken, I was ashamed to hang back longer, and I went up, though my legs trembled under me, and a bird darting suddenly out of the ivy glued me to the ladder by both hands, with the sweat standing out on my face. Alone, nothing on earth would have persuaded me to it; but with Jennie below I dared not flinch, and the latch of the window proving as weak as she had described it, in a moment the lattice swung open and I climbed over the sill.

Feeling the floor with my feet, I stood an instant in the dark stuffy room, and listened. It smelled strongly of herbs, on which account I hate that smell to this day. I could hear Mrs. Harris snoring next door; and the pendulum of the fine new clock on the stairs, which was Mrs. D----'s latest pride, was swinging to and fro regularly; and I knew that at the slightest alarm the house would be awake. But I had gone too far to recede; and though I feared and sweated, and at the touch of a hand must have screamed aloud, I went forward and groping my way across the floor, found the bureau, and tried the drawer.

It was locked, but crazily; and Jennie foreseeing the obstacle had given me a chisel. Inserting the point, I listened awhile to assure myself that all was quiet, and then with the resolution of despair forced the drawer open with a single wrench. Probably the noise was no great one, but to my ears it rang through the night loud as the crack of laden ice. I heard the sleeper in the next room cease her snoring and turn in the bed; and cowering down on the floor I gave up all for lost. But in a moment she began to breathe again, and encouraged by that and the silence in the house, I drew the drawer open, and feeling for the bag, discovered it, and clutching it firmly, turned to the window.

I found that Jennie had mounted the ladder, and was looking into the room, her hands on the sill, her head dark against the sky. "Have you got it?" she whispered, thrusting in her arm and groping for me. "Then give it me while you get the candlesticks. They are wrapped in flannel, and are under the bed."

I gave her the bag, which chinked as it passed from hand to hand; then I turned obediently, and groping my way to the bed which stood beside the bureau, I felt under it. I found nothing, but did not at once give up. The candlesticks might lie on the farther side, and accordingly I rose and climbed over the bed and tried again, passing my hands through the flue and dust which had gathered under Mrs. D----'s best feather-bed.

How long I might have searched in the dark, and vainly, I cannot say; for my efforts were brought to a premature end by a dull thud that came to my ears apparently from the next room. Certain that it could be caused by nothing less than Mrs. Harris getting out of bed, I crawled out, and got to my feet in a panic, and stood in the dark quaking and listening; so terrified that I am sure if the good woman had entered at that moment, I should have fallen on my knees before her, and confessed all. Nothing followed, however; the house remained quiet; I heard no second sound. But my nerve was gone. I wanted nothing so much now as to be out of the place; not for a thousand guineas would I have stayed; and without giving another thought to the candlesticks, I groped my way to the window, and passing one leg over the sill, felt hurriedly for the ladder.

I failed to find it, and tried again; then peering down called Jennie by name. She did not answer. A second time I called, and felt about with my foot; still without success. Then as it dawned upon me at last that the ladder was really gone, and I a prisoner, I thought of prudence no longer, but I called frantically, at first in a whisper, and then as loudly as I dared; called and called again, "Jennie! Jennie!" And yet again, "Jennie!"

Still no answer came; but listening intently, in one of the intervals of silence, I caught the even beat of hoofs, receding along the road, and growing each moment less marked. They held me; scarcely breathing, I listened to them, until they died away in the distance of the summer night, and only the sharp insistent chirp of the cricket, singing in the garden below, came to my ears.