Part 2 (1/2)

A few moments more, and the sky paled to grey. The darkness came down with tropical suddenness. I made a movement forwards.

”Shall I not be seen if I follow you through the village in these weird clothes?” she said civilly, as one who hesitates to make a suggestion.

”Where is your house?”

”My cot--it is not a house--is just at the end of those trees,” I said.

”It is the only one close to the park gates. It has virginia creeper over the porch, and a white gate.”

”It sounds charming.”

”But how on earth are we to get there?” I groaned. ”And some one may come along this path at any moment.”

The dusk was falling rapidly. Candles were beginning to twinkle in latticed windows. A yellow light from the public-house made an impa.s.sable streak across the road. Cheerful voices were coming along the meadow path behind us. What was to be done?

”Go home,” she said steadily. ”I will find my own way.”

”But my servant?”

”Make your mind easy. She will not see me. I shall not ring the bell.

Have you a dog?”

”No. My dear little Lindo----”

”It's going to be a black night. I shall be in the porch half an hour after dark.”

She went swiftly from me, and as the voices drew near I saw her pick her way noiselessly into one of the great ditches, and stand motionless in the water, obliterated against a pollard willow.

I hurried home. My feet were quite wet, and even my stockings--a thing that had not happened to me for years. I changed at once, and took five drops of camphor on a lump of sugar. It would be extraordinarily inconvenient if I were to take cold, with my tendency to bronchial catarrh. I have no time to be ill in my busy life. Was not ”Broodings beside the Dieben” being finished in hot haste for an eager publisher?

And had I not promised to give away the Sunday-school prizes at Forlinghorn a fortnight hence?

It was half-past six. My garden boy was pumping in the scullery. He kept his tools in the stable, and it was his duty to lock it up and hang the key on the nail inside the scullery door.

Supposing he forgot to hang it up to-night of all nights! Supposing he took it away with him by mistake! I went into the scullery directly he had gone. I made a pretext of throwing away some flowers, though I had never thought of needing a pretext for going there before. The stable key was on its nail all right. I looked into the kitchen, where my little maid-servant was preparing my evening meal. When her back was turned, I s.n.a.t.c.hed the key from the nail, dropped it noisily on the brick floor, caught it up, withdrew to the parlour, and sank down in my armchair shaking from head to foot. My doctor was right indeed when he said I vibrated like a harp.

The life of contemplation and meditation is more suited to my highly strung nature than that of adventure and intrigue.

My servant brought in the lamp, and I hurriedly sat on the key while she did so. Then she drew the curtains in the little houseplace, locked the outer door, and went back to the kitchen.

There are two doors to my cottage--the front door with the porch leading to the lane, and the back door out of the scullery which opens into my little slip of garden. At the bottom of the garden is a disused stable, utilised by me to store wood in, and old boxes. The gate to the back way to the stable from the lane had been permanently closed till the day should come when I could afford a pony and cart. But in these days novels of not too refined a type are the only form of literature (if they can be called literature) for which the public is eager. It will devour and extol anything, however coa.r.s.e, which panders to its love of excitement, while grave books dealing with the spiritual side of life, books of thought and culture, are left unheeded on the shelf. Such had been the fate of mine.

The rain had ceased at last, and the wind was falling. My mind kept on making all sorts of uneasy suggestions to me as I sat in my armchair.

What was I to do with the--the individual when I had got her safely into the stable, if I ever did get her safely there? How about food, how about dry clothes, how about a light, how about everything? Supposing she overslept herself, and Tommy found her there in the morning when he went for his tools? Supposing my landlord, Mr. Ledbury, who was a magistrate, found out I had harboured a criminal, and gave me notice just when I had repapered the parlour and put in a new back to the kitchen range? Such a calamity was unthinkable. What happened to people who compounded felonies? Was I compounding one? Why was not I sitting down? What was I doing standing in the middle of the parlour with the stable key in my hand, and, as I caught sight of myself in the gla.s.s, with my mouth wide open?

I sat down again resolutely, hiding the key under the cus.h.i.+on, and calmer thoughts supervened. After all, it was most improbable, almost impossible, that I should be found out. And once the adventure was safely over, when I had successfully carried it through, what interesting accounts I should be able to give of it at luncheon parties in London in the winter. My brothers would really believe at last that I could act with energy and presence of mind. There was a rooted impression in the minds of my own family that I was a flurried sort of person, easily thrown off my balance, making mountains out of molehills (this was especially irritating to me, as I have always taken a broad, sane view of life), who always twisted my ankle if it could be twisted, or lost my luggage, or caught childish ailments for the second time.

Where there is but one gifted member in a large and commonplace family, an absurd idea of this kind is apt to grow from a joke into an _idee fixe_.

It had obtained credence originally because I certainly had once in a dreamy moment got my gown shut into the door in an empty railway compartment on the far side. And as the gla.s.s was up on the station side I had been unable to attract any one's attention when I wanted to alight, and had had to go on to Portsmouth (where the train stopped for good) before I could make my presence and my predicament known. This trivial incident had never been forgotten by my family--so much so, that I had often regretted the hilarious spirit of pure comedy at my own expense which had prompted me to relate it to them.