THE moon was getting low, and threw a level and somewhat sinister light into the lower windows of the White House as Harry came within sight of home. In that bare country, with so few trees to break the light, all the changes in the heavens had a direct influence upon the earth, darkening and lightening it with instantaneous sympathy, such as is not felt in regions less exposed. This special aspect of the light reflecting itself feebly in the lower windows, gave the house the appearance of wearing, as a human countenance sometimes does, a pale and unpleasant smile upon its lips, in which the rest of the face was not involved. The young man did not pay any attention to this at the moment, but when he thought afterwards of the aspect of the place, this was the look that occurred to him; a pale smile, full of mocking and derision; the smile of one cognizant of unknown evil which was about to overwhelm an unsuspecting victim, and taking pleasure in it.
He went up quite calmly to the door. On ordinary occasions it was not necessary for Harry even to knock; his mother, who disapproved as much of the “Red Lion” as Isaac Oliver himself, was always on the watch, stealing down through the dark house in noiseless slippers to let him in, lest he should disturb his father and a quarrel should ensue. Very often, Harry was aware, she was at the window looking out for him, sitting alone in the darkness waiting till she heard his step. He was aware that one way or another she was always on the watch. This, however, did not disturb him, or dispose him to give up his own way of spending the evening. He was not a bad son—certainly he had not the least intention of being so: but that he should change his habits, or do anything he wished not to do, because of his mother’s little feeble anxieties, was a thing which had not occurred to him. All the family knew that she was given to “making a fuss.” Harry supposed she liked to sit up and watch for him. Why should she do it if she didn’t like it? it would be a great deal easier to let him have the key, or tell a servant to sit up. But she liked it; she liked to wait for him at the window, and start up as soon as she heard any sound. Women do; or so, at least, Harry supposed. Joan, to be sure, had never shown the least inclination to do this; but then, one of Joan’s chief distinctions was that she was but little of a woman at all. He came up to the door as usual and stood there for a moment without excitement, listening for the little stir within, which had never failed him, the soft, hesitating, noiseless step, the little sweep of the dress. He stood for a minute looking about him; the moon was quite low in the sky, throwing his shadow before him upon the door, so black and close to him that he was startled for a moment as if it had been a ruffian facing him, and shining chilly, with that sinister look which he had already remarked, in the parlour window. That was his mother’s post when she watched, looking out for him; he had seen the bit of the shutter open, night after night, just enough to see through without being herself perceived, if (an unlikely hypothesis), anyone but Harry should pass that way. But the shutter was closed to-night, and did its share of reflection, sending out a dull glimmer from its dark paint. All was perfectly silent in the house.
He could not think what had happened. He walked back a little and contemplated the place, which now looked as if a hood had been drawn over the upper part, leaving that uncomfortable light below. Now that he was standing still, Harry felt the chill of the night air, which had been agreeable to him before. He began to stamp with his feet to keep them warm, and to attract, if possible, the notice of his mother. What did she mean by paying no attention? She had always heard him before he came near the house, always been ready for him before he reached the door. If she had not accustomed him to this, Harry thought, he would have found some other way of getting admission, though he scarcely knew how; and he grew impatient, and very much annoyed and angry with her. To keep him waiting out here at midnight in the cold; it was out of the question! what could she be thinking of? At the same time, he did not want to rouse his father, and run the risk of another encounter. To meet a woman’s reproaches, who is silenced if you speak a little loud, and is pretty sure to cry at the end, is one thing—but to meet a furious man is quite another. The first risk was not worth taking the trouble to avoid, but Harry felt that it was certainly wiser to keep clear of the other. He had no desire, accordingly, to arouse the house; but at the same time, to be left standing there, chilled to the bone, was out of the question. After he had walked about for a time, impatiently, but with some precaution, he went so far as to knock at the door. There was no bell, nor if there had been one would he have ventured to ring it, for a bell is alarming, pealing into the silence of a shut up house. His soft knocking, however, did no more good than his other attempts to make himself heard. What could it mean? He got colder and colder externally, while within him his temper kindled. What did she mean by leaving him in the lurch? If a mother was good for anything, surely it was to keep her son out of trouble, to shield him from another quarrel. She made fuss enough about the quarrel when it occurred, but now she was allowing things to take their chance, letting that happen as ill-luck directed, nay, bringing the quarrel on, her son felt, indignantly; for if she had never made a practice of opening to him, probably he would not have made a practice of going out, and would not have exposed himself to the storm, which was sure to come now. The moonlight stole away by degrees even from the lower windows, putting out one reflection after another, and disappearing at last with a sinister twinkle, as if of triumph. Though the moonlight had seemed the quintessence of cold and dreariness, yet the blackness of night seemed still colder and drearier after it was gone. He seemed to have been hours standing before that door: and it was out of the question! he would not bear it any longer, happen what might. He began to knock loudly, filling all the dreary echoes with sound; but still nobody stirred in the house.
He had not carried this on for above a minute, however, when a faint something seemed to stir in the darkness behind. There was the faint hiss of a “Hist!” and, he thought, his own name. He turned round to see if perhaps his mother had chosen this time to open the back-door instead of the front, and with a muttered denunciation of her caprice took his way to the supposed opening. It was so dark now that he stumbled even round those corners which were so well known to him. He was relieved, yet it made him angry to be obliged to have recourse to a back way. Could anything be more foolish, he thought, than to change thus without cause or warning?
“Where are you? What’s the matter that I can’t come in as usual?” he said, crossly, as he groped his way among tubs and piles of wood.
“Hush!” said some one, “hush, for heaven’s sake!”
It was not his mother’s voice. And there, in the corner among the washhouses and other offices, he saw a glimmer of something white.
“Good Lord! Joan! what’s the matter with my mother?” he cried.
“Hush! Nothing’s the matter with mother; father’s got her locked up, that is all; and it’s all your fault. Come on, and hold your tongue now you are here.”
It was a sort of little shed in which she stood, and he could see nothing but the whiteness of her nightdress, over which she had thrown a cloak.
“Things have gone just as wrong as can be,” she said; “warm your hands at the copper, you’ll not find a fire indoors. He’s cracked, I think; and so are you too, for ever running to that ‘Red Lion.’ What is there that’s so entertaining? If there’s any fun to be had I’d like to go too.”
“There’s no fun—that you could understand,” said Harry.
Joan laughed; she stood close to the copper in the dark, warming herself, and so did he. It was a kind of little excitement to her, she who had so few excitements, to have had to get up, as she expressed it, in the middle of the night to let her brother in. And though she was sagacious enough not to put much confidence in the “fun” of the “Red Lion,” still it represented jollity and wildness to her as well as to Isaac Oliver. She laughed.
“Oh, you’re very grand, I know; women folk can’t understand, you are cleverer than we are. But I wonder you can be so easy pleased; if young Selby and Jim Salkeld, and the common men of the village, are very entertaining at the ‘Red Lion,’ it’s more than they are in any other place.”
“What do you know about it?” cried Harry.
She laughed again, which was exasperating. Young men take nothing more amiss than an impertinent woman’s doubts as to the brilliancy of the entertainment in those haunts which are sacred to their own special enjoyment. He knew very well at bottom that the “Red Lion” was as dull as ditchwater; but nothing would have made him confess it; where else, he said to himself, had he to go?
“You had better mind your own concerns,” he said, “I’ll get my amusement my own way. Has there been a row that mother’s not here? I don’t mean to say that I am not obliged to you, Joan, for getting out of bed to let me in. By Jove, if I had been shut out I know what I’d have done! Was there a great row?”
“What would you have done?” said Joan, still half laughing; then she started and with a little cry, said, “What’s that?”
“What’s what? I’ll tell you this, I should never have crossed the door again in daylight, be sure of that, that was shut to me in the night.”
Before he had finished this speech, Joan clutched him by the arm.
“Don’t you hear something?” she said, “come in, come in, don’t lose a minute. What if he should lock the kitchen door? Harry, promise me you’ll not stop to say a word, but run up to your bed.”
She was hurrying while she spoke, through the series of outbuildings, dragging him with her, breathless, and speaking in gasps. But as they went on from one to another there could be no longer any doubt as to what had happened. The kitchen door, which opened from these offices, was shut with a loud jar, and the key turned.
“I dunno’ who’s out and about at this hour of the night,” Joscelyn was heard within, “but whoever it is they’ll stay there: some o’ the women out like the cats, dash them, or may be a good-for-nothing lad. I’ll teach them what it is to roam the country o’ nights. You’ll stay there whoever you are.”
Joan lost all her self-command in the emergency. She dropped Harry’s hand and threw herself against the door.
“Oh, father, father, open! do you hear me? It’s me, Joan. Open! will you let me bide out in the cold, in the dead of night? Father! let me in, let me in! you wouldn’t have the heart to shut me out all night. It’s me, me, Joan!”
There was no reply; his steps were heard going away mounting the stairs, and a faint outcry in the distance as of the mother weeping and protesting. Joan, who was a very simple person, though so self-commanded in emergencies which her mother could not face, was altogether taken by surprise by this. She flung herself against the door with a burst of weeping.
“Oh, open, open!” she said, beating upon it with her hands. Then she called out the names of the servants one after another. “I’ll not be left here all the night; open, open! do you hear! I’ll not be left here all the night. I’ll die if I am left out in the dark. I’ll not be left!” she cried with a shriek.
Harry was silenced by this loud and sudden passion so close to him. It alarmed him, for Joan was the impersonation of strength and calm; but the situation was uncomfortable enough, however it could be taken. The consciousness that he had some one else to think for, some one who for the present had lost her head, and all power to think for herself, changed his own position. He caught his sister by the arm.
“Don’t make such a row,” he said, “Joan, you! that was always against a fuss.”
“Oh,” cried Joan half wild, “did I ever think that I’d be shut out like a bad woman out of the house at the dead of night—me! that was always the most respectable, that never stirred a step even in the evening times, or said a word to a man. Open! it isn’t the cold, it’s the character: me! me!”
But all her beating and knocking, and all her prayers were in vain. The maids slept soundly, all but one trembling girl who heard the voice without knowing whose it was, and dared not get up to see what was the matter, especially as she heard mysterious steps going up and down stairs. And the mistress of the house sobbed in her chamber in the dark, wringing her hands. She had come almost to the length of personal conflict with her husband for the first time in her life; but poor Mrs. Joscelyn even in her despair was no sort of match for the man who lifted her, swearing and laughing, into her bed, and locked the door upon her when he went downstairs. He came up and fiercely ordered her to be silent.
“Dash you, hold your blanked tongue. I’ve taken it into my own hands, and if you venture to interfere I’ll pitch you out of window as soon as look at you,” he said, “a deal sooner for that matter—for you’re not tempting to look at, you dashed white-faced ——”
“Yes, do,” she cried, “throw me out of the window, throw me out to my children. I’d rather be dead with my children than living here.” And she rushed to the window and threw it open; but he caught her before she could throw herself out, and perhaps, poor woman, she would not have thrown herself out; for “I dare not” very often waits upon “I would” in such circumstances. He carried her back crying and struggling to her bed. Though he had not hesitated to turn the key upon his son and daughter, he had no desire to have it whispered in the country side that his wife had thrown herself out of window, because of his cruelty; but he could not resist giving her a shake as he threw her upon her bed.
“I’d never have had any fuss in my family if it hadn’t been for you; just you budge at your peril,” he said, threatening her with his fist. And there she lay with the cry of her daughter in her ears, and the sound of the knocking that seemed to be upon her heart. To tell the truth she was not very anxious about Joan. Joan would have a bad cold, that would be all the damage she would take; but Harry, Harry! what would Harry do?
When Joan had beat the door and her knuckles almost to a jelly, she came to a sudden pause. In a moment her mood changed; her passion wrought itself out almost as suddenly as it began.
“Well, if I can’t have the door opened I’d best give up trying,” she said all at once. Her hands were fatigued with knocking, and her feet with kicking. She was hoarse, and her eyes ached with the hot tears that had poured from them. She came to herself with a sudden sense of shame—she who was so strenuous in her opposition to a fuss. She had no sense of cold now, her shawl hung off her shoulders with the fervour of her efforts. “My word, but I’ll give it to those lasses,” was the next thing Joan said: and then she laughed at herself to carry off her sense of shame.
“We’re both in the same box, Harry,” she said, “well! two together isn’t so bad as one alone; come back to the washhouse. I’m glad I told them to light that copper—if it wasn’t a providence! we’ll sit us down there and keep warm; and don’t you take on, my lad. It’s not so very long to day.”
When she recovered, however, it was Harry’s turn. He followed her back to the copper without a word. He even pulled the bench on which the tubs stood close to that centre of warmth for her, and got her something on which to put her feet. By this time a certain pleasure in the novelty of the situation had arisen in Joan’s mind. “My word, I made a fine noise. Mother will be in a terrible way, that’s the worst of it. As for father I’ll pay him out. Don’t you be afraid; he’ll repent the night he meddled with Joan; and I’ll give it to the maids. Just as likely as not he’s taken away the key; but bless us all, what’s the good of being a woman if you can’t find out a way? I’d have done it if he’d stood over me with a drawn sword. But, Harry, you never speak a word. Are you cold? come and sit here by me on the warmest side. ’Twill be as cosy here as if you were in a pie; and I’ll give you a bit of my shawl. Come, lad! pluck up a heart: I’ve nigh cried my eyes out; but that does no good. I can’t see you, Harry; but I know you’re down, though I can’t see.”
“Down!” he said, “Can a fellow be anything but down with a raging wild beast for a father, and shut out of every shelter through a cold spring night.”
“That’s very true,” said Joan, “and I’m no example, as you’ve seen; but still I’m in the same box if that’s any consolation.”
“No, it is no consolation,” said Harry; “it makes it worse; for if you are here perishing of cold it’s all on my account.”
“I’m not perishing of cold. I’m as hearty as a cricket. If he thinks he’ll break my spirit he’s much mistaken; and that’s all about it. It did touch me the first minute. I feel that I was just a big baby. But after all, Harry, if you will stay out till all the hours of the night, and go to that ‘Red Lion,’ which is known to have ruined many a lad——”
“Oh, hold your tongue about the ‘Red Lion!’—you are as bad as old Isaac. Where am I to go?”
“What’s to prevent you biding at home?” said Joan. “Dear me, you’re not such a deal better than I am, Harry Joscelyn. Where do I ever go? I’ve been as young as you once upon a time, and what diversion was ever given to me? and I’m not to say so dreadful old yet. Can you not put up for a week with what I have put up with all my life?”
“You don’t understand—it’s quite different,” said Harry, hotly; “you’re a woman, you’re an old—Good Lord, can’t you see the difference? Where should you be but at home? but what would you have me do, stuck between two women and that—that father of mine?—” Harry here menaced the dark world with his fist, and burst, in his turn, into an outcry of passion. “I’ll neither sleep under his roof nor call him father, nor reckon myself to belong to him more! You hear what I say, Joan; you can bear witness. Not if I were to starve; not if I were to die; not if I were to cadge about the streets!—White House has seen the last of me. You can tell my mother I think upon her: but she must not expect ever to see me again.”
“Tut, tut,” said Joan, tranquilly; “to be sure you must have your fling. Ay, ay, say away, my lad; it’s always a relief: and we’ll not keep you to it when you come to yourself.”
“That’s well for you, Joan,” said her brother; “but for me, I don’t mean to come to myself. He’s done it, I can tell you. What did he ever do for me? but if he had been the best father in the world now he’s made an end of it. Am I to be treated like this, home on a visit and I cannot put my affairs before him, and ask for my share to buy me into the business, but I’m met with abuse: and when I go out for a little peace the door’s shut upon me. You can do what you please, but I’ll not stand it. We’ve all lived a wretched life, but I’ll make an end of it. Don’t you think it’s all a flash-in-the-pan, and that I don’t mean what I say.”
“Well, well, lad—if it keeps your spirits up a bit. Are you not sleepy? Let’s make the best of it. Harry: after all it’s but one night. Though this is not to call an easy seat. I’m that sleepy I shall go off, I know I shall. If you see me tumbling be sure you catch me. I cannot keep awake another minute. Good night, lad, good night.”
This was half real, on Joan’s part, and half put on to calm her brother down; but in that part of her intention she was not very successful. After a while she really did as she had threatened, and fell into a sound, if uneasy, sleep. But Harry had no inclination that way. He sat and pondered over all his wrongs, and as he mused the fire burned. What was home to him?—nothing. A place where there was no peace—a pandemonium—and when there was either quarrelling or dulness—dulness beyond description; either a fight with his father or a drowse by his mother’s side—that was all the comfort he had of his home. And after all, when he put the question to himself, and nobody else interfered, he was obliged to allow that the entertainment at the “Red Lion” was not of a very exciting character. There was not much in that to make up for the want of everything else. He sat upon the edge of the copper dangling his legs, and, notwithstanding that warmth, the chill of the night got into his heart. He had no overcoat, as his mother had remembered, when he went out; and as the slow moments passed on, the night became intolerable to Harry, and the sense that his enemy, his father, was chuckling in the warmth upstairs over his outcast condition, distracted him with impotent rage. Never again would he subject himself to such a shame. He clenched his fist and made a vow within himself, while Joan, leaning her head against him, slumbered uneasily. After a while Joan had a little shock in her sleep, half woke, and felt her pillow displaced, and dreaming, not knowing where she was, threw herself back against the copper and settled down somehow again. She dreamt there had been an earthquake, and that the copper itself was a volcano and had made an eruption and tumbled down upon her, catching her fast by the feet. A little after, poor Mrs. Joscelyn, lying awake crying silently and saying her prayers over and over again, heard a handful of gravel flung violently against her window and the sound of footsteps. What did it mean? The tyrant had gone to sleep a few minutes before, and he slept heavily. She crept out of bed with a sinking heart, and after a great deal of alarmed searching found the keys, of her own room first, and then of the doors below. She did not even turn to find something to cover her, but fled downstairs, like a ghost, with her naked feet and a wild flutter in her heart. When she made her way with some difficulty to the place where her children had found refuge, she came just in time to deliver Joan, who had almost broken her neck in her struggles to get out of the way of the earthquake, and was lying, with her head back and her mouth open, among the tubs. Though she was conscious of being in some convulsion of nature it was not easy to wake Joan, and there was no one else to be seen. Mrs. Joscelyn, with her candle in her hand, went searching into every corner while her daughter picked herself up. “Harry,” she cried, “Harry! oh where is my boy?” There was not a trace of him about; not even an impromptu couch, like Joan’s, made up of benches and washing tubs. The mother flitted about into all the offices, while Joan roused herself with many yawns, rubbing her stiff neck and knotting up her straggling locks, and gathering her shawl round her shoulders. “Oh that copper,” Joan was saying, “it’s been the saving of my life.”
“But where is my boy? Oh! Joan, what have you done with him? Where is my boy?”
“I have not got him in my pocket,” Joan said, with a sleepy smile. Then as she roused herself quite up, “To be sure, mother, the lad’s not a fool though we give him the credit of it. He’s gone back to his blessed ‘Red Lion,’ and is safe in his bed, as I would like to be. And if I had let him alone and not poked in where I wasn’t wanted, there’s where he would have been from the first. You see that’s just your way. I have a little bit of it in me, if not much; and, instead of letting him be, I must meddle. But he’s safe in his bed at the ‘Red Lion;’ and you’d better go back to yours, and let me go to mine, and make the best of a bad night.”
“I cannot think he has gone to the ‘Red Lion,’” said Mrs. Joscelyn, standing in her white nightdress, with her glaring candle, against the great darkness of the night in the doorway, and investigating the gloom by that poor assistance with her anxious eyes.