SOMETHING singular in the appearance of his house engaged Mr. Tuke’s attention the moment he drew rein before the door. Desolate and haunted it always looked; but now there was a deathly air about the place that was an additional burden on its eeriness.
The reason of this he found was not far to seek. Behind the latticed glazing of every window the strong shutters were closed and bolted, though it was now eleven o’clock of a sunny, brisk morning.
He dismounted and tried the front door. It was fastened also. On the echo of his angry summons fell the sound of a light step within.
“Who are you?” cried Darda’s voice shrilly through the keyhole.
“Open, girl! What is the meaning of this?”
She drew the bolts reluctantly—deliberately. In his impatience to enter he almost threw her down.
“What is the meaning of this?” he repeated.
She had backed into a shadowy angle of the hall, and thence looked at him with a sullen defiance. He had to again put his question, and harshly.
“Oh!” she said, nodding at him with an angry look, “what trouble hasn’t your coming brought on us!”
“Now,” he said peremptorily, “explain yourself.”
“We lived at peace with the shadows and the spirits before,” she answered. “Since you came they take to worrying us; and they have made his face like death.”
“Whose face, you jade?”
“His—my brother’s. They were about the house all last night—creeping, creeping, as soft as snow on withered leaves. He feared that they would get in, and he dared not rest or sleep till daylight came; and now he is on his bed.”
Tuke strode to the end of the hall.
“Whimple!” he thundered. “Come and take my horse!”
He felt Darda’s breath at his ear, and turned to find she had come swiftly after him with her white face.
“You devil!” she hissed. “You bring the evil, and then torture my Dennis from his sleep.”
He put her sternly aside, and, twisting about for another violent summons, subsided into an “’umph!” of petulance.
The man was standing silent before him, the same scared look in his eyes that he had learned to loathe.
“Why is the house locked and sealed like this?” he demanded.
“I dared not open it, sir, till you came.”
The servant spoke in a faint, tired voice.
“Dared not! and why?” said his master.
Whimple looked about him helplessly, as if he sought a loophole of escape from the question.
“Come,” said the other, “why did you not dare?”
“I was frightened; terrified. There were noises and footsteps.”
“The wind or any other natural cause. These bugbears don’t stalk in the daytime. A pretty caretaker, upon my word!”
He looked at the fellow gloomily; hesitated, and, bidding him roughly see to his horse, turned into the dining-hall, closed the door, unbolted and threw open the shutters, and sat himself down before a dull fire.
“What is it all? what is it all?” he thought desperately. “Am I in good truth being stalked and shadowed, and for what reason? And is that fellow in the league against me? Blythewood knows him well, and has a high opinion of him. What then? What favourable view can I possibly take of his reticence and evasiveness? For all I know, Blythewood himself may be the chief of a colony of pads and cut-throats. I am a lamb amongst wolves—knowing nought of the neighbourhood; moving in the dark. I am drowned and overwhelmed in a sea of mysteries—in a cursed Lake of Wine. And there, there, there! Luvaine’s fabulous stone!”
He sprang to his feet, and set to pacing the room.
“By God!” he cried aloud, “I will stand it no more! I will be master of my own, and subscribe no longer to the infernal bullying of circumstances!”
In the midst of his excitement the vision of Angela rose before him, sparkling, spirituelle—a true child of the thoughtless, effervescent life of his everyday custom.
“Oh, I am a fool!” he murmured. “She and her brother carry their patents of respectability on their sleeves.”
But from now he was determined to throw off all gloom and trepidation; to go his way and improve his estate without idle speculations as to antagonistic forces at work, and to strike, and strike hard, if he was interfered with.
All that day he sang and whistled over his labour of investigation. Perhaps, in the background of his fancy, rose and broadened a dawn of new hopes and possibilities. Perhaps he pictured there a “Delsrop” restored, cultivated and flourishing, and contiguous to other fruitful acres, wherein his interest was figured in a certain dainty lady, destined to be the mother of one who should recover his own waived surname and title. For so, he could not forbear reflecting, had the titular restriction been imposed upon himself alone.
He was coming across his lawn on the afternoon of the following day, when he noticed a cart issue from the drive and stop, and saw Betty Pollack jump down with a basket on her arm.
He strolled, conscious of a sudden spring of pleasure in his veins, towards the girl, who dropped a pretty curtsey to him as he neared her.
“Come round the kitchen-gardens, Betty,” said he; “and see if you can supply anything we don’t already possess.”
He glanced with a certain defiance, as he spoke, at the old gaffer seated in the gig, mumchance and blinking, like a withered owl, and led the way to a crazy door that opened into a walled garden.
Betty followed him timidly, and looked shyly about her as he introduced her to the prospect.
“There!” said he. “Is not that Eden?”
“It is very neglected and unkempt,” said the girl gravely. “There is work for two men here for many days; and then the soil would want well manuring, to make it fruitful.”
He laughed. His careless eye roved over her charms luxuriously. Suddenly, child of his new-found tenderness, a great pity awoke in his heart for this poor lamb, so treacherously shepherded.
“Betty,” he said gently, “have you no mother?”
She smiled with a little falling sadness.
“Oh, your honour, she died before I can remember.”
“Or father?”
Betty looked sheepish.
“Father was shot by the Preventive in ’91,” she murmured.
“H’m! and he there—has he brought you up and cared for you?”
“Ever since? Yes.”
“And he’s good to you?”
Her rosy face took an expression of surprise.
“Grandfather? Oh, yes! We are the only two left. I shall be—I shall be quite alone when he is gone.”
Could this—the desire to secure protection for his own, on whatever condition, be the explanation of the old man’s attitude? A wryed morality, if it were; but at least forethoughtful and unselfish. But no. The suggestion had been an evil and self-interested one.
“Do you serve the tap all day, Betty?” said he.
“Mostly, your honour. But Jim will take a turn when we go a-jaunting.”
“Who is Jim?”
“He’s the stable-boy.”
“Well, what have you got for me there?”
She groped in her basket.
“Here’s turnips and little carrots, and a right early stick of celery.”
“I’ll pay you double for each, and throw a kiss in for interest, Betty.”
She backed a step or two.
“Will you please not to talk like that?”
“I will please; I will please. Deeds are better than words.”
She made as if to run from him; but pulled herself up and stood still with eyes full of trouble.
His blood raced in his veins. She looked a very Andromeda—warm and winning and pathetic. He went a hurried pace, slid his arm about her, and kissed her lips softly. The moment he had done it, he was sorry.
She never moved, panting where she stood.
“I hope you will be ashamed,” she said, with a little breaking sob.
He answered humbly: “I am, Betty—there, I am;” and gave her a glance of remorse.
Then he added: “Go to your grandfather, my dear. Maybe, after all, the old scamp is safer than the young.”
“Yes,” she said, striving to steady her voice. “I mustn’t come hither again.”
She turned and moved away a step or two, her pretty head hanging. Suddenly she faced about, and came at our gentleman with a little spit of passion.
“I trusted you, and it was unfair. And I came to give your honour warning, and now I won’t!”
The words were hardly out of her lips when her eyes were drowned in tears.
“Yes, yes—I will, I will!” she cried, and buried her face in her hands.
Tuke smiled and put his arm again about the girl. She showed no sign of resentment—even allowed herself to be pulled a trifle closer to him.
“Betty, my little wench—what is it all? What is the to-do?”
“Oh!” she looked up at him through blinking lashes—“there are evil men about.”
“Why, so I know, my dear. And what then?”
She clasped her fingers convulsively over the basket-handle.
“I fear for your honour. There is something dark afoot; and you live lone and the times is troublous.”
“But all this is for any understanding. Have you nothing more?”
“I have my eyes and my ears. I see folks, and I hear a many words that isn’t meant for me. There’s a man, Breeds, your honour—ah! you know him; a feckless creature, but dangerous in his cups. He’s not to be trusted. He consorts wi’ rogues and hath a hanging reputation. I would your honour could lay him by the heels for harbouring cut-throats.”
“I have my eye on him, Betty.”
He could get nothing more definite from the girl. She was full of alarm and uneasiness on his account, but on what founded she had a difficulty in explaining. She knew only that of late certain strangers, of a somewhat villainous cast, were housed within the walls of the old wayside tavern; that occasionally a couple of them would drop into the tap of the “First Inn,” and secretly terrify her, secretly listening, with muttered innuendoes and hoarse whisperings on the subject of some projected scheme of roguery.
Then Stockbridge was little more than a rustic village—a boorish community of clodpolls, that nightly slept away the memory of its daily toil in a beery stupor of indifference; and what practical influence could thence be brought to bear on blackguards predetermined to some deed of darkness?
The moral was all of woman’s intuition, and therefore to be accorded respect.
Mr. Tuke acknowledged this; but he laughed away Betty’s fears; while she, good girl, forgetful of her right of offence, did entreat him, with many pretty words and troubled looks, and a clasping of her hands—olive as young ripening filberts—to be on his guard.
He saw her drive away and disappear. Then, with set lips and a dour contraction of his eyebrows, he made for the house to order his horse to be saddled.
He was a man whose constitutional good-nature underlay whole stories of determination. The topmost of these was to temporize with no discomfort, moral or physical; but to strike at the root of the trouble before analyzing it. He would never have a tooth that pained him stopt; but must suffer the moment’s wrench to save days of dull aching.
Now it was that he saw the centre of the unaccountable to be that same beetled-browed tavern. To the “Dog and Duck” he would ride forthwith, and so seek counsel of the very heart of the mystery.