"You may believe me. Why should I do him harm?"
Bess bit her nails in doubt; and for the first time since her entrance she turned her eyes from her rival. Perhaps for this reason Henrietta"s courage rose. She told herself that she had been foolish to feel fear a few minutes before: that she had allowed herself to be scared by a few rude words, such as women of this cla.s.s used on the least provocation. And the temptation to drop the matter if she could escape uninjured gave way to a brave determination to do all that was possible. She resolved to be firm, yet prudent; and to persevere. And when the dialogue was resumed the tone on each side was more moderate.
"Well," Bess said, with a grudging air, "perhaps you may not wish to do him harm. I don"t know, my la.s.s. But you may do it, all the same."
"How?"
"If you think he is here you are mistaken."
Henrietta had already come to this conclusion.
"Still," she said, "I can go to him."
"I don"t see how you are to go to him."
"I will go anywhere."
"Ay," with contempt. "And so will a many more at your heels."
"No one saw me come here," Henrietta said.
"No. But it will be odd if no one sees you leave here. I met Bishop as I came, and another with him, hot-foot after you, both, and raising the country as fast as they could."
Henrietta frowned. She gazed through the window. Then she looked again at Bess.
"Is he far from here?" she asked.
"That"s telling, and I"m not going to tell. Far or near, I don"t see how you are to go to him, unless----" She broke off, paused a moment, and then, as if she put away a thought that had occurred to her, "No,"
she said with decision, "I see no way. There is no way."
To Henrietta, the girl, the situation, the surroundings, and not least her own role, were odious. Merely to negotiate with such an one as this was a humiliation; but to endure her open scorn, to feel her cheeks burn under the fire of her taunts, was hateful. Yet failure in the enterprise from which she had let herself expect so much was still worse--still worse; and the prospect of it overcame her pride. She could not accept the defeat of all her hopes and expectations. She could not.
"You said "unless,"" she retorted.
Bess laughed.
"Ay, but it"s an "unless,"" she answered contemptuously, "that you are not the one to fill up."
"What do you mean?"
"What I say," Bess answered impudently. And vaulting sideways on the table, she sat swinging her feet, and eyeing the other with a triumphant smile.
"Unless what?"
"Unless you like to stay here until it is dark,--ay, dark, my pretty peac.o.c.k; and that won"t be for an hour or more. Then you may go to him safely. Not before! But you fine ladies," with a look that took in Henrietta, from her high-piled hair and flushed face to the hem of her skirt, "are afraid of your shadows, I"m told."
"I am not afraid of my shadow," Henrietta answered.
"You"re afraid of the dark, or why didn"t you come when he asked you?
And when you could have helped him? Why did you not come then and say what you chose to him?"
"I did come," Henrietta answered coldly. "It was he who failed to meet me."
"That"s a nice flim-flam!" Bess rejoined, with incredulity. "You"re not one to venture yourself out after moonrise, I"ll be bound. And so I told him! But any way," sliding to her feet, and speaking with decision, "he"s not here, and you can"t see him! And to tell the truth, I"d as lief have your room as your company, that being so."
She turned to the door as if to open it. But Henrietta did not move.
She was deep in thought. The sneering words, the dark handsome face, filled her with distrust; and with something like loathing of herself when she reflected that the man she sought had been this girl"s lover.
But they also aroused her spirit. They spurred her to the step which the other dared her to take. Was she to show herself as a timid thing, as poor a creature as this gipsy girl deemed her? She had come hither with her heart set upon a prize; was she to relinquish that prize because its pursuit demanded an ordinary amount of courage--such courage as this village girl possessed and made naught of?
And yet--and yet she hesitated. She was not afraid of the girl; she was not afraid--she told herself--of the man who had once professed to be her lover: but there might be others, and it would be dark. If the boy were there, there would be others. And she was not sure that she was--not afraid. For the old man by the fireside, with his squalid clothes and his horrible greediness, made her flesh creep. She hesitated, until Bess, with a sneer, bade her to go if she was going.
"I"d as soon see your back," she continued, "and ha" done with it. I know your sort! All fine feathers and as much s.p.u.n.k as a mouse!"
Henrietta made up her mind. She sat down on the nearest stool.
"I shall remain," she said, "and go with you to see him."
"Not you! So what"s the use of talking?"
"I shall go," Henrietta replied firmly. "It will be dark in an hour. I will remain and go with you."
Bess shrugged her shoulders and answered nothing. But had Henrietta caught sight of her smile, she had certainly changed her mind.
Even without that, and unwarned, the girl found, as they sat there in silence, and the minutes pa.s.sed and the light faded, much ground for hesitation. The words which Clyne had used when he forbade her to risk herself, the terms in which he had described the desperate plight of the men whom she must beard, the fears that had a.s.sailed her when she had gone after dark to meet a peril less serious--all these things recurred to her memory, and scared her. By pressing her lips together she maintained a show of unconcern; but only because the dusk hid her loss of colour. She repented--gravely; but she had not the courage to draw back. She shrank from meeting--as she must meet, if she rose to go--the other"s smile of triumph; she shrank from the sense of humiliation under which she would smart after she had escaped. She had cast the die and must dare. She must see the enterprise through. And she sat on. But she was sure that she could hardly suffer anything worse than she suffered during those minutes, while her fate still lay in her hands, while the power to withdraw was still hers, and indecision plucked at her. The man who fights with his back to the wall suffers less than when, before he drew his blade, imagination dealt him a score of deaths.
The old man continued to grumble over the fire; and seldom, but sometimes, he laid his chin on his shoulder and looked back at her.
Bess, on the contrary, gazed at her as the cat at the mouse; but with her back to the light and her own face in shadow, so that whatever thoughts or pa.s.sions clouded her dark eyes, they pa.s.sed unseen.
Presently, as the light failed, Bess"s head became no more than a dark k.n.o.b breaking the lower line of dusty panes; while through the upper a patch of pale green sky, promising frost, held Henrietta"s eyes and raised a still but solemn voice amid the tumult of her thoughts. That morsel of sky was the only clean, pure thing within sight, and it faded quickly, and became first grey and then a blur of darkness. By that time the room, with its close, fetid odours and its hints at gruesome secrets, had sunk into the blackness of night.
The fire gave out a dull glow, but it went no farther than the hearth.
Yet presently it was the cause of an illusion, if illusion it was, which gave Henrietta a shock. Turning her eyes from the window--it seemed to her that longer waiting would break her down--she saw the outline of the old miser"s figure, but erect and much closer to her than before--and, unless she was mistaken, with hands outstretched as if to clutch her neck. She uttered a low cry, and rose, and stepped back. On the instant he vanished. But whether he sank down, or retreated, or had never stirred, she could not be sure; while her cry found an echo in Bess"s mischievous laughter.
"Ha! ha! You"re not quite so bold!" Bess cried, with enjoyment, "as you were an hour ago, I reckon!"
The jeer gave a fillip to Henrietta"s pride.
"I am ready," she said, though her voice shook a little.
"And you"ll go?"
"Yes," coldly; "I shall go."
"Did you think he was going to twist your pretty neck?" Bess rejoined.
"Was that it? But come," in a more sober tone, "we"ll go. Good-night, old man!" And moving to the door with the ease of one who knew every foot of the room, she unlocked it. A breath of fresh, cold air, blowing on her cheek, informed Henrietta that the door was open. She groped her way to it.
"Do you wait here," Bess whispered, "while I see if the coast is clear. You"ll hear an owl hoot; then come."
But Henrietta was not going to be left with that old man. She crept outside the door and, holding it behind her, waited. The night was dark as well as cold, for the moon would not rise for some hours; and Henrietta wondered, as she drew her hood about her neck, how they were to go anywhere. Presently the owl hooted low, and she released the door, and groped her way round the house and between the fir trunks to the gate. A hand, rough but small, clutched her wrist and turned her about; a voice whispered, "Come!" and the two, Bess acting as guide, set off in silence along the road in the direction of Troutbeck.