Part 8 (2/2)
He had spoken without premeditation, and paused now, doubtful of the sound of his own voice. The five Managers were looking at him with respectful attention. Apparently, then, he was speaking sense; and he spoke on, still wondering by what will (not his own) the words came.
”If you leave her and the children alone, I think her religion will not trouble you. She is accustomed to boys, and teaches them to be honourable to one another and gentle to their sisters.”
He paused again and drummed with his fingers on the table. He heard the voices break out again, and gathered that the majority a.s.sented.
Mechanically he put the resolution, declared it carried, and closed the meeting; as mechanically he shook hands with all the Managers and wished them good-night. ”And on your way, Benny, you may tell the maids they may go to bed. I'll blow out the candles myself.”
When all had taken their leave he sat for a while, still staring at the reflected lights along the board. Then he arose and pa.s.sed into his counting-house, where an oil lamp burned upon his writing-table.
He took pen and paper and wrote, addressed the letter, sealed it carefully, and leaned back in his chair, studying the address.
”There is to-morrow,” he muttered. ”I can reconsider it before post-time to-morrow.”
But the restlessness had vanished and left in its stead a deep peace.
If Death waited for him in the next room, he felt that he could go quietly now and take it by the hand. He remembered the candles still burning there, and stood up with a slight s.h.i.+ver--a characteristic shake of his broad shoulders. As he did so his eyes fell again upon the addressed letter. He turned them slowly to the door--and there, between him and the lights on the long table, a vision moved towards him--the figure of a girl dressed all in black. His hand went up to the phial in his breast-pocket, but paused half-way as he gazed into the face and met her eyes. . . .
CHAPTER VI.
THE RAFTERS.
Two children came stealing downstairs in the early dawn, carrying their boots in their hands, whispering, lifting their faces as if listening for some sound to come from the upper floors. But the whole house kept silence.
Their plan was to escape by one of the windows on the ground floor.
Tiptoeing along the hall to the door of the great parlour, Myra noiselessly lifted the latch (all the doors in the house had old-fas.h.i.+oned latches) and peeped in. The candles on the long table had burned themselves out, and the shuttered room lay in darkness save for one long glint of light along the mahogany table-top. It came from the half-open doorway in the far corner, beyond which, in the counting-house, a ghost of a flame yet trembled in Rosewarne's lamp.
Myra caught at Clem's arm and drew him back into the hall. For the moment terror overcame her--terror of something sinister within--of their grandfather sitting there like Giant Pope in the story, waiting to catch them. She hurried Clem along to the kitchen-pa.s.sage, which opened out of the hall at right angles to the front door and close beside it.
The front door had a fanlight through which fell one broken sunray, filtered to a pale green by the honeysuckle of the porch; and reaching it, she caught her breath in a new alarm. The bolts were drawn.
After a furtive glance behind her, she peered more closely, holding Clem fast by the sleeve. Yes, certainly the bolts were drawn, and the key had not been turned in the lock. Very cautiously she tried the heavy latch.
The door opened easily--though with a creak that fetched her heart into her mouth.
But there was no going back. Whatever might be the explanation of the unbolted door, they were free now, at large in the dewy morning with the world at their feet. The brightness of it dazzled Myra. It broke on Clem's ears with the dinning of innumerable birds.
They took hands and hurried down the gravel path. Did ever Madonna lilies, did ever clove carnations smell as did these, lifting their heads from their morning bath? Yet field challenged garden with the fragrance of new-mown hay wafted down through the elms from Parc-an-hal, that great meadow.
On the low wall by the garden-gate Myra found a seat for Clem, helped him to lace his boots, and then did on her own.
”What's the time?” Clem demanded.
”I don't know, but he'll be coming soon. It can't be four o'clock yet, or we should hear Jim Tregay knocking about the milk-pails.”
The boy sat silent, nursing his knee, drinking in a thousand scents and sounds. Myra watched the great humble-bees staggering from flower to flower, blundering among their dew-filled cups. She drew down a lily-stem gently, and guided her brother's hand so that it held one heady fellow imprisoned, buzzing under his palm and tickling it. Clem laughed aloud.
”Listen!”
A lad came whistling Up the road from the village. It was Tom Trevarthen, and the suns.h.i.+ne glinted on his silver earrings.
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