"Come!" he said. "There is not a moment to be lost."
"Oh!" she cried hysterically, yet kept her shaking voice low; "I thought you were not coming. I thought it was all over."
"I am late," he answered nervously; his face was pale, his shifty eyes avoided hers." It is eleven o"clock, but I could not get the key before.
Follow me closely and silently, child; and in a few minutes you will be safe."
"Heaven bless you!" she cried, weeping. And would have taken his hand.
But at that he turned from her so abruptly that she marvelled, for she had not judged him a man averse from thanks. But setting his manner down to the danger and the need of haste, she took the hint and controlling her feelings, prepared to follow him in silence. Holding the lanthorn so that its light fell on the floor he listened an instant, then led the way on tip-toe down the dim corridor. The house was hushed round them; if a board creaked under their feet, it seemed to her scared ears a pistol shot. At the entrance to the gallery which was partly illumined by lights still burning in the hall below, the tutor paused anew an instant to listen, then turned quickly from it, and by a narrow pa.s.sage on the right gained a back staircase. Descending the steep stairs he guided her by devious turnings through dingy offices and servants"
quarters until they stood in safety before an outer door. To withdraw the bar that secured it, while she held the lanthorn, was for the tutor the work of an instant. They pa.s.sed through, and he closed the door softly behind them.
After the confinement of her prison, the night air that blew on her temples was rapture to Julia; for it breathed of freedom. She turned her face up to the dark boughs that met and interlaced above her head, and whispered her thankfulness. Then, obedient to Mr. Thoma.s.son"s impatient gesture, she hastened to follow him along a dank narrow path that skirted the wall of the house for a few yards, then turned off among the trees.
They had left the wall no more than a dozen paces behind them, when Mr.
Thoma.s.son paused, as in doubt, and raised his light. They were in a little beech-coppice that grew close up to the walls of the servants"
offices. The light showed the dark shining trunks, running in solemn rows this way and that; and more than one path trodden smooth across the roots. The lanthorn disclosed no more, but apparently this was enough for Mr. Thoma.s.son. He pursued the path he had chosen, and less than a minute"s walking brought them to the avenue.
Julia drew a breath of relief and looked behind and before. "Where is the carriage?" she whispered, shivering with excitement.
The tutor before he answered raised his lanthorn thrice to the level of his head, as if to make sure of his position. Then, "In the road," he answered. "And the sooner you are in it the better, child, for I must return and replace the key before he sobers. Or "twill, be worse for me," he added snappishly, "than for you."
"You are not coming with me? "she exclaimed in surprise.
"No, I--I can"t quarrel with him," he answered hurriedly. "I--I am under obligations to him. And once in the carriage you"ll be safe."
"Then please to tell me this," Julia rejoined, her breath a little short. "Mr. Thoma.s.son, did you know anything of my being carried off before it took place?"
"I?" he cried effusively. "Did I know?"
"I mean--were you employed--to bring me to Mr. Pomeroy"s?"
"I employed? To bring you to Mr. Pomeroy"s? Good heavens! ma"am, what do you take me for?" the tutor cried in righteous indignation. "No, ma"am, certainly not! I am not that kind of man!" And then blurting out the truth in his surprise, "Why, "twas Mr. Dunborough!" he said. "And like him too! Heaven keep us from him!"
"Mr. Dunborough?" she exclaimed.
"Yes, yes."
"Oh," she said, in a helpless, foolish kind of way. "It was Mr.
Dunborough, was it?" And she begged his pardon. And did it too so humbly, in a voice so broken by feeling and grat.i.tude, that, bad man as he was, his soul revolted from the work he was upon; and for an instant, he stood still, the lanthorn swinging in his hand.
She misinterpreted the movement. "Are we right?" she said, anxiously.
"You don"t think that we are out of the road?" Though the night was dark, and it was difficult to discern, anything beyond the circle of light thrown by the lanthorn, it struck her that the avenue they were traversing was not the one by which she had approached the house two nights before. The trees seemed to stand farther from one another and to be smaller. Or was it her fancy?
But it was not that had moved him to stand; for in a moment, with a curious sound between a groan and a curse he led the way on, without answering her. Fifty paces brought them to the gate and the road.
Thoma.s.son held up his lanthorn and looked over the gate.
"Where is the carriage?" she whispered, startled by the darkness and silence.
"It should be here," he answered, his voice betraying his perplexity.
"It should be here at this gate. But I--I don"t see it."
"Would it have lights?" she asked anxiously. He had opened the gate by this time, and as she spoke they pa.s.sed through, and stood together looking up and down the road. The moon was obscured, and the lanthorn"s rays were of little use to find a carriage which was not there.
"It should be here, and it should have lights," he said in evident dismay. "I don"t know what to think of it. I--ha! What is that? It is coming, I think. Yes, I hear it. The coachman must have drawn off a little for some reason, and now he has seen the lanthorn."
He had only the sound of wheels to go upon, but he proved to be right; she uttered a sigh of relief as the twin lights of a carriage apparently approaching round a bend of the road broke upon them. The lights drew near and nearer, and the tutor waved his lamp. For a second the driver appeared to be going to pa.s.s them; then, as Mr. Thoma.s.son again waved his lanthorn and shouted, he drew up.
"Halloa!" he said.
Mr. Thoma.s.son did not answer, but with a trembling hand opened the door and thrust the girl in. "G.o.d bless you!" she murmured; "and--" He slammed the door, cutting short the sentence.
"Well?" the driver said, looking down at him, his face in shadow; "I am--"
"Go on!" Mr. Thoma.s.son cried peremptorily, and waving his lanthorn again, startled the horses; which plunged away wildly, the man tugging vainly at the reins. The tutor fancied that, as it started, he caught a faint scream from the inside of the chaise, but he set it down to fright caused by the sudden jerk; and, after he had stood long enough to a.s.sure himself that the carriage was keeping the road, he turned to retrace his steps to the house.
He was feeling for the latch of the gate--his thoughts no pleasant ones, for the devil pays scant measure--when his ear was surprised by a new sound of wheels approaching from the direction whence the chaise had come. He stood to listen, thinking he heard an echo; but in a second or two he saw lights approaching through the night precisely as the other lights had approached. Once seen they came on swiftly, and he was still standing gaping in wonder when a carriage and pair, a postboy riding and a servant sitting outside, swept by, dazzling him a moment; the next it was gone, whirled away into the darkness.
CHAPTER x.x.xI
THE INN AT CHIPPENHAM
The road which pa.s.sed before the gates at Bastwick was not a highway, and Mr. Thoma.s.son stood a full minute, staring after the carriage, and wondering what chance brought a traveller that way at that hour.
Presently it occurred to him that one of Mr. Pomeroy"s neighbours might have dined abroad, have sat late over the wine, and be now returning; and that so the incident might admit of the most innocent explanation.
Yet it left him uneasy. Until the last hum of wheels died in the distance he stood listening and thinking. Then he turned from the gate, and with a shiver betook himself towards the house. He had done his part.
Or had he? The road was not ten paces behind him, when a cry rent the darkness, and he paused to listen. He caught the sound of hasty footsteps crossing the open ground on his right, and apparently approaching; and he raised his lanthorn in alarm. The next moment a dark form vaulted the railings that fenced the avenue on that side, sprang on the affrighted tutor, and, seizing him violently by the collar, shook him to and fro as a terrier shakes a rat.
It was Mr. Pomeroy, beside himself with rage. "What have you done with her?" he cried. "You treacherous hound! Answer, or by heaven I shall choke you!"
"Done--done with whom?" the tutor gasped, striving to free himself.
"Mr. Pomeroy, I am not--what does this--mean?"
"With her? With the girl?"
"She is--I have put her in the carriage! I swear I have! Oh!" he shrieked, as Mr. Pomeroy, in a fresh access of pa.s.sion, gripped his throat and squeezed it. "I have put her in the carriage, I tell you! I have done everything you told me!"
"In the carriage? What carriage? In what carriage?"
"The one that was there."
"At the gate?"
"Yes, yes."
"You fool! You imbecile!" Mr. Pomeroy roared, as he shook him with all his strength. "The carriage is at the other gate."
Mr. Thoma.s.son gasped, partly with surprise, partly under the influence of Pomeroy"s violence. "At the other gate?" he faltered. "But--there was a carriage here. I saw it. I put her in it. Not a minute ago!"