Part 52 (1/2)
The letter was a thunderbolt to Tom, In his worst dreams he had never imagined anything so dark as this. He hurried back to the station at such a pace that the poor major was reduced to a most asthmatical and wheezy condition. He trotted along pluckily, however, and as he went heard the account of Tom's adventures in the morning and of the departure of Ezra Girdlestone and of his red-bearded companion.
The major's face grew more anxious still when he heard of it. ”Pray G.o.d we may not be too late!” he panted.
CHAPTER XLI.
THE CLOUDS GROW DARKER.
When Kate had made a clean breast of all her troubles to the widow Scully, and had secured that good woman's co-operation, a great weight seemed to have been lifted from her heart, and she sprang from the shed a different woman. It would soon be like a dream, all these dreary weeks in the grim old house. Within a day she was sure that either Tom or the major would find means of communicating with her. The thought made her so happy that the colour stole back into her cheeks, and she sang for very lightness of heart as she made her way back to the Priory.
Mrs. Jorrocks and Rebecca observed the change which had come over her and marvelled at it. Kate attempted to aid the former in her household work, but the old crone refused her a.s.sistance and repulsed her harshly.
Her maid too answered her curtly when she addressed her, and eyed her in anything but a friendly manner.
”You don't seem much the worse,” she remarked, ”for all the wonderful things you seed in the night.”
”Oh, don't speak of it,” said Kate. ”I am afraid that I have given you a great fright. I was feeling far from well, and I suppose that I must have imagined all about that dreadful monk. Yet, at the time, I a.s.sure you that I saw it as plainly as I see you now.”
”What's that she says?” asked Mrs. Jorrocks, with her hand to her ear.
”She says that she saw a ghost last night as plain as she sees you now.”
”Pack of nonsense!” cried the old woman, rattling the poker in the grate. ”I've been here afore she came--all alone in the house, too--and I hain't seen nothing of the sort. When she's got nothing else to grumble about she pretends as she has seen a ghost.”
”No, no,” the girl said cheerily. ”I am not grumbling--indeed I am not.”
”It's like her contrariness to say so,” old Mrs. Jorrocks cried hoa.r.s.ely. ”She's always a-contradictin'.”
”You're not in a good temper to-day,” Kate remarked, and went off to her room, going up the steps two at a time with her old springy footstep.
Rebecca followed her, and noticing the change, interpreted it in her own narrow fas.h.i.+on.
”You seems cheerful enough now,” she said, standing at Kate's door and looking into her room, with a bitter smile on her lips. ”To-morrow is Sat.u.r.day. That's what's the matter with you.”
”To-morrow Sat.u.r.day!” Kate repeated in astonishment.
”Yes; you know what I mean well enough. It's no use pretending that you don't.”
The girl's manner was so aggressive that Kate was astonished.
”I haven't the least idea of what you mean,” she said.
”Oh no,” cried Rebecca, with her arms akimbo and a sneer on her face.
”She doesn't know what I mean. She doesn't know that her young man is coming down on the Sat.u.r.day. She does not know that Mr. Ezra comes all the way from London on that day just for to see her. It isn't that that makes you cheerful, is it? Oh, you double face!” The girl's pretty features were all distorted with malice as she spoke, and her two hands were clenched pa.s.sionately.
”Rebecca!” cried Kate energetically, ”I really think that you are the most complete fool that ever I met in my life. I will trouble you to remember that I am your mistress and you are my servant. How dare you speak to me in such a way? Leave my room this instant!”
The girl stood her ground as though she intended to brazen it out, but Kate swept towards her with so much honest anger in her voice, and such natural dignity in her bearing, that she sank her bold gaze, and with a few muttered words slunk away into her own room. Kate closed the door behind her, and then, her sense of the ludicrous overpowering her anger, she laughed for the first time since she had been in the Priory. It was so intensely ridiculous that even the most foolish of mortals should imagine that she could, under any circ.u.mstances, be desirous of seeing Ezra Girdlestone. The very thought of him brought her amus.e.m.e.nt to an end, for the maid was right, and to-morrow would bring him down once more. Perhaps her friends might arrive before he did. G.o.d grant it!
It was a cold but a bright day. From her window she could see the snow-white sails of the Hamps.h.i.+re fis.h.i.+ng-boats dipping and rising against the deep blue sea. A single barque rode amongst them, like a swan among ducklings, beating up against the wind for Portsmouth or Southampton. Away on the right was the long line of white foam which marked the Winner Sands. The tide was in and the great mudbanks had disappeared, save that here and there their dun-coloured convexity rose above the surface like the back of a sleeping leviathan. Overhead a great flock of wild geese were flapping their way southward, like a broad arrow against the sky. It was an exhilarating, bracing scene, and accorded well with her own humour. She felt so full of life and hope that she could hardly believe that she was the same girl who that very morning had hurled away the poison bottle, knowing in her heart that unless she destroyed it she might be tempted to follow her guardian's sinister suggestions. Yet the incident was real enough, for there were the fragments of gla.s.s scattered over the bare planks of her floor, and the insidious odour of the drug was still so strong that she opened the window in order to dissipate it. Looking back at it now, it all seemed like some hideous nightmare.
She had no very clear idea as to what she expected her friends to do.
That she would be saved, and that speedily, she never for one instant doubted. She had only to wait patiently and all would be well.