Part 4 (1/2)
Returning to the garden, I heard a pleasant voice wis.h.i.+ng me ”Good-morning.” I looked round. Naomi Colebrook was standing at one of the lower windows of the farm. She had her working ap.r.o.n on, and she was industriously brightening the knives for the breakfast-table on an old-fas.h.i.+oned board. A sleek black cat balanced himself on her shoulder, watching the flas.h.i.+ng motion of the knife as she pa.s.sed it rapidly to and fro on the leather-covered surface of the board.
”Come here,” she said; ”I want to speak to you.”
I noticed, as I approached, that her pretty face was clouded and anxious. She pushed the cat irritably off her shoulder; she welcomed me with only the faint reflection of her bright customary smile.
”I have seen John Jago,” she said. ”He has been hinting at something which he says happened under your bedroom window this morning. When I begged him to explain himself, he only answered, 'Ask Mr. Lefrank; I must be off to Narrabee.' What does it mean? Tell me right away, sir!
I'm out of temper, and I can't wait!”
Except that I made the best instead of the worst of it, I told her what had happened under my window as plainly as I have told it here. She put down the knife that she was cleaning, and folded her hands before her, thinking.
”I wish I had never given John Jago that meeting,” she said. ”When a man asks anything of a woman, the woman, I find, mostly repents it if she says 'Yes.'”
She made that quaint reflection with a very troubled brow. The moonlight meeting had left some unwelcome remembrances in her mind. I saw that as plainly as I saw Naomi herself.
What had John Jago said to her? I put the question with all needful delicacy, making my apologies beforehand.
”I should like to tell _you_,” she began, with a strong emphasis on the last word.
There she stopped. She turned pale; then suddenly flushed again to the deepest red. She took up the knife once more, and went on cleaning it as industriously as ever.
”I mustn't tell you,” she resumed, with her head down over the knife.
”I have promised not to tell anybody. That's the truth. Forget all about it, sir, as soon as you can. Hus.h.!.+ here's the spy who saw us last night on the walk and who told Silas!”
Dreary Miss Meadowcroft opened the kitchen door. She carried an ostentatiously large Prayer-Book; and she looked at Naomi as only a jealous woman of middle age _can_ look at a younger and prettier woman than herself.
”Prayers, Miss Colebrook,” she said in her sourest manner. She paused, and noticed me standing under the window. ”Prayers, Mr. Lefrank,” she added, with a look of devout pity, directed exclusively to my address.
”We will follow you directly, Miss Meadowcroft,” said Naomi.
”I have no desire to intrude on your secrets, Miss Colebrook.”
With that acrid answer, our priestess took herself and her Prayer-Book out of the kitchen. I joined Naomi, entering the room by the garden door. She met me eagerly. ”I am not quite easy about something,” she said. ”Did you tell me that you left Ambrose and Silas together?”
”Yes.”
”Suppose Silas tells Ambrose of what happened this morning?”
The same idea, as I have already mentioned, had occurred to my mind. I did my best to rea.s.sure Naomi.
”Mr. Jago is out of the way,” I replied. ”You and I can easily put things right in his absence.”
She took my arm.
”Come in to prayers,” she said. ”Ambrose will be there, and I shall find an opportunity of speaking to him.”
Neither Ambrose nor Silas was in the breakfast-room when we entered it.
After waiting vainly for ten minutes, Mr. Meadowcroft told his daughter to read the prayers. Miss Meadowcroft read, thereupon, in the tone of an injured woman taking the throne of mercy by storm, and insisting on her rights. Breakfast followed; and still the brothers were absent.
Miss Meadowcroft looked at her father, and said, ”From bad to worse, sir. What did I tell you?” Naomi instantly applied the antidote: ”The boys are no doubt detained over their work, uncle.” She turned to me.
”You want to see the farm, Mr. Lefrank. Come and help me to find the boys.”