it was on the night of tuesday that isaac came to ursula’s cottage and seated himself on the oak settle before the fire. old ursula was in the ingle-nook with a pile of stockings in her lap, bess on a stool beside the fender, her hands clasped about her knees, her eyes full of the thought of jeffray. she had opened the door to the patriarch, greeted him somewhat sullenly, and shot the bolts after him for fear that dan should be lurking outside the cottage. isaac grimshaw’s smooth face suggested that he was in the most sociable of moods. he persuaded his sister to brew a bowl of rum punch, and, drawing out a short pipe and a tobacco-box from the tail-pocket of his coat, sat smoking before the fire. bess, on her stool, was watching the old man suspiciously, and wondering what thoughts were passing in his mind. she always distrusted isaac’s good-humor, and preferred a frown from him to a smile.
isaac began to prattle on all manner of matters, poking fun at old ursula and looking as simple and jolly an old fellow as ever sniffed the odors of lemon and rum, cloves and cinnamon. he talked of rookhurst fair, and promised to buy a bunch of ribbons for ursula, and a pair of red shoes for her to wear on may-day.
bess grew very mistrustful of the old man’s mood as he sat there shaking his silvery hair in the firelight, thrusting out his lower lip, and watching her with his keen, gray eyes. she would take none of his punch, though he pressed her often, noticing that ursula was growing drowsy after she had drunk of it more than once. she felt instinctively that there was something false in the old man’s hilarity. often bess fancied that isaac was listening for some sound he intended that she should not hear. she concealed her suspicions from him, humored his gayety, and kept her wits alert lest there might be treachery afoot against herself. isaac still ladled out the punch, winking at bess as old ursula waxed sleepy in the ingle-nook. he began to tell the women of rookhurst fair in the old days, when he could handle a cudgel with any youngster in the country. his shrill yet melodious voice flowed on without ceasing, as though he were endeavoring to drown the silence with a perpetual plash of words.
“ah, dame,” he said, “i can remember when jeremy brought ye your wedding-ribbons and a ring at rookhurst. you were a merry bit of mutton then. do you call to mind old stumpy job, the jew who used to have his stall in the corner of the market before surgeon stott’s door? it was john stott in those days, and, deuce take me, he was a rough devil; he’d bleed you half dead and blister your back till there wasn’t a sound bit of skin over your kidneys. well, stumpy job, he was about the cleverest knave as ever i knew. half the smugglers in the channel had dealings with him, and if ‘my lady’ wanted french lace or silks, she had but to let stumpy know, and a pack load of finery would drop over the garden-wall one quiet night. yes, stumpy was a neat rogue, but too greedy on the main chance, and they stretched his neck for him at the end of it. they hanged him on dardan heath for shooting an exciseman, and he showed the white-feather terrible at the end. i did hear that he promised to pay ’em all a powerful lot of money if they’d let him run and cross the water. his guineas were buried somewhere down chichester way, and they do say that a flash dame who kept an inn there had it, for stumpy was always hot on the women.”
bess had been sitting motionless all through the old man’s monologue, her brows contracted, and an expression of alertness on her face. her eyes were fixed upon the door opening upon the stairs, though she cast rapid glances ever and again at isaac’s countenance shining in the firelight under his silvery hair. ursula was half asleep in the ingle-nook, nodding her head mechanically over her brother’s reminiscences. bess had caught a vague and indefinite sound that had quickened her pulses and deepened her distrust. she rose up very quietly from her stool, yawned, and reached for the brass candlestick upon the mantle-shelf.
old isaac, wide-awake on the instant, turned on the settle and looked at her suspiciously.
“what’s amiss, lass?” he asked her, with a smile.
bess lit the candle, steadied herself, betraying nothing of the dread that was in her heart.
“i am tired, and it is growing late.”
“tut, tut, lass, stay with us a little longer. have you listened too much to an old man’s tales?”
bess yawned behind her hand, laughed, and walked towards the stairs.
“ursula will sit and listen to you, uncle,” she said. “there is hot water in the kettle if you want more punch.”
she opened the stair door, and, shutting it quickly after her, shot the bolt on the inside. isaac had started up from the settle, and limped across the room with an impatient grin upon his face. bess heard him try the door and go back balked to the fire when he found it bolted. holding the candle above her head she climbed the stairs slowly, step by step, frowning when the bare boards creaked, and halting continually to listen. she had drawn one of jeffray’s pistols from her bosom, and the steel barrel quivered a little as her fingers strained nervously about the stock.
coming to the narrow landing at the top of the stairs, she stood listening, with her head bent forward, the candle shaded behind her hand. the two doors that opened upon the landing were shut, and bess knew not what their black panelling might hide. putting her ear close to the door of her own bedroom, she heard the casement rattling from time to time, and a sound as of some one at work on the iron bars closing the window. the candle shook a little in her hand. setting it down on an old chest by the wall, she gathered her courage, and, lifting the latch, threw the door open at arm’s-length.
outlined against the dark square of the window, bess saw the head and shoulders of a man. he appeared to be half kneeling on the window-ledge without, working at the clamps that held the iron bars in their sockets. the casement frame was open, and for the moment bess could not see his face.
he looked up suddenly on hearing the door open, swore, and hung there staring at bess as she stood in the doorway with the candle behind her. she had recognized dan, and understood with a flash of fury why he was loosening the bars of the window. there was a short ladder leaning against the cottage wall under dan’s feet. he let himself half drop from the window-sill as bess came forward into the room hiding her pistol behind her back.
“dan, you devil—”
she stood, pointing at him, her face ablaze, her eyes hard and cruel. dan was feeling the bar warily with his hand, grinning and showing his yellow fangs, and looking at bess like a hungry animal.
“let me in, wench,” he said.
bess eyed him and fingered her pistol.
“let you in, dan! the stair door’s bolted and the bar is up. come at me—if you can—you coward.”
there was a sudden splintering of wood as the bar was forced in by the man’s powerful arm. he lifted his chest to the sill, and hung there straining and panting, working with his knees and feet against the wall. bess could hear isaac beating upon the door that closed the staircase. she moved quite close to dan, and pointed her pistol at his head.
“stop, or i’ll kill ye!”
dan gave a great heave and brought his knees up on the sill. bess fired at him on the instant, and sprang back towards the door. the ball whipped off the lobe of dan’s right ear, the charge blackening and scorching his face. the shock lost him his balance. bess saw him clutch at the casement frame, and go tumbling down, tearing the lattice with him as he fell. awed for the moment, she stepped to the window and saw dan lying in a black heap under the ladder that had toppled down on him. from below came old ursula’s cries and isaac’s cursing. bess heard the cottage door open. footsteps came through the garden under the trees. isaac’s white head gleamed in the moonlight as he ran forward and pulled the ladder from off dan’s body.
bess turned to the cupboard in the corner of the room, and took out the second pistol jeffray had given her. she went to the window again and looked out. isaac had his arms under dan’s shoulders; the old man was kneeling and supporting his son’s body, questioning him in a shrill, fierce voice as to whether he was badly hurt. dan was little the worse save for a strained back and a torn ear. he scrambled up stupidly with his hand to his head, and stood looking up at bess with savage spite in his eyes.
“thank the lord, you she-dog,” shouted old isaac, his mouth working like the mouth of a man in pain, “the shot went wide of the lad’s head.”
ursula, who had hobbled round, laid a hand on her brother’s shoulder.
“don’t vex the girl further, isaac,” she whimpered.
old grimshaw shook her hand away, and cursed bess to her face.
“by heaven, you shall be tamed,” he said. “dan shall have you yet. who gave you your shooting-irons, eh? i’ll come round and make ’em safe to-morrow; you shall give ’em up, or i’ll know why. come, lad, pick up the ladder; we must see to your burned face.”
they took the ladder between them, and marched away in the moonlight towards the hamlet. ursula, who had barred the door again, came up to bess in her bedroom, querulous and frightened. the girl told her the whole truth, how dan had loosened the window-bars in their sockets while isaac was talking to them in the kitchen. ursula shook her head over the treachery, cursed dan, and tottered off to bed.
bess did not sleep that night, but, wrapping herself in her cloak, lay down to think. the moon was sinking towards the west, flooding the little room with silvery light, and making the girl’s face seem white and wistful in the gloom. from the bed, bess could see the towering woods melting away into dreamlands of mist and magic. all pevensel seemed asleep, with no wind stirring. the pines about the cottage stood black and motionless under the stars. from below bess could catch the quiet laughter of the stream in the valley running under the moonlight amid the trees.
she lay there a long while in a stupor of fierce and rebellious thought, the sense of her own loneliness deepened by the vast silence of the night. despite her woman’s fury against dan, she shivered and felt cold, and even the shadowy magic of pevensel seemed full of treachery and whispering horror. not till another morrow would she meet jeffray at holy cross, and she had much to fear from isaac and his son.
as she lay on the bed with the moonlight flooding in, the sudden, shrill cry of a bird taken by a weasel in the woods trembled up out of the silence. bess shuddered and started up from the pillow. she caught a warning in this wild thing’s cry, an omen vouchsafed to her by savage pevensel. white and cold about the lips, she rose up suddenly, went to the window, and looked out. she could see the broken lattice lying at the foot of the wall, and even imagined that the stains of dan’s blood were visible upon the grass. how she hated and feared the man! the thought of his coarse face and great, heavy hands strengthened her in her passion to escape from the forest.
turning back into the room, she put one of jeffray’s pistols into her bosom and hid the other under the mattress of the bed. then she buckled on her best shoes, hooked up her cloak, and drew the hood forward over her face. very softly she crept down the stairs into the kitchen, and listened for a moment outside ursula’s door to discover whether the old woman was awake or no. she heard the sound of deep and regular breathing within, and knew that the dame was fast asleep. the embers of the fire still glowed on the hearth, and the kitchen reeked of isaac’s tobacco. creeping to the cottage door, she took down the bar noiselessly and shot back the bolts. without the world seemed built up of magic, the moonlight flooding down upon the orchards and the woods. bess shut the door gently, passed through the garden, and half ran across the open grass-land betwixt the cottage and the forest. she took the path leading up towards the heath about the beacon rock, and, gathering her cloak round her, fled away into the moon-streaked shadows.
it was early in the morning when bess, who had asked her way of a laborer trimming the hedges by the road, came down from the high lands and saw rodenham village with its red-and-white walls and thatched roofs in the valley. the smoke ascended from the chimneys in purple threads towards the blue, and a haze of gold hung over the woods and meadows, dimming the grand outlines of the distant downs. bess saw the priory standing apart from the village amid the green billows of its park and the shadows of its mighty trees. the place looked very solemn and stately in the morning light, and almost forbidding to her in the autocracy of its solitude. she felt much like a beggar-woman as she slipped through the lodge gates and passed under the yews that stood there in massive and shadowy repose.
iron gates swinging on stone pillars, each topped with a carved dragon, opened upon the terrace and garden. bess pushed in and passed on bravely towards the tudor porch, with its massive timbers, and roses and acorns carved in oak. each tall window of the house seemed to stare at her superciliously, and the peacocks strutting on the terrace in the sun were like so many gaudy lackeys ruffling it about her. she climbed the three steps, and laid her hand on the iron bell-pull with a fluttering feeling at the heart. how the rusty thing creaked and resisted her! then the rod slid so vigorously in its rusty sockets that the loud and insistent clangor of the bell made bess fancy that the whole house was startled by her boldness.
an elderly woman in a mob-cap, her hair in curl papers, opened the door to bess. the servants had fled the house, and peter gladden and his wife alone remained to minister to jeffray in his sickness. the butler was sitting by the open window of richard’s room, watching for surgeon stott and listening to his master’s delirious mutterings. it was mrs. barbara who opened the door to bess that morning and stared at her in some surprise. mrs. barbara was a sour-tempered person, very sure of her own importance; nor had the flight of her maids tended to sanctify her resentful soul.
“well, what d’you want, eh?”
bess colored under the woman’s curious stare. there was nothing suggestive of courtesy in mrs. gladden’s manner.
“i have come to see mr. jeffray.”
the woman’s eyes studied the girl’s person with impertinent composure. she looked at bess’s handsome face, considered her clothes, and prepared for circumspection in her dealings with so gypsyish a wench.
“what’s your name?”
“bess grimshaw.”
“grimshaw?”
“yes.”
“where do you come from?”
“pevensel.”
“and what’s your business?”
bess’s eyes smouldered at such cross-questioning. mrs. barbara’s attitude was brusque and insolent. she was in the habit of bullying the girls under her, and, like an underling intrusted with some authority, she made the most of it, and mistook impertinence for dignity.
“i want to see mr. jeffray,” quoth bess, quietly.
“you do, do you?”
“mr. jeffray knows my name.”
mrs. barbara’s brows contracted, and there was an unpleasant glint in her brown eyes.
“and what may your business with the squire be?” she asked, suspiciously.
bess reddened and began to look fierce.
“my business is not yours,” she retorted. “if you will tell mr. jeffray that i am here he will see me.”
mrs. gladden drew herself up, and expressed amazement that a gypsy wench should give herself such mighty airs.
“highty-tighty!” she exclaimed, with elevated nostrils; “are we on visiting terms at the priory? you grimshaws may have broken mr. jeffray’s head, but you are not of the quality the young master receives. come. what d’you want? money, eh? the back door is the place for beggars.”
bess’s natural dignity appeared to lift her out of the squabble and to set her immeasurably above mrs. barbara’s papered head.
“i have come to speak with mr. jeffray, that is all,” she said, looking very haughtily into the elder woman’s face. “i have not come to beg or to wrangle with mr. jeffray’s servants.”
“servants! the impertinence of it!”
“i will bide here—till you have taken my name to your master, madam.”
mrs. gladden’s nose suggested the presence of some very unpleasant odor. she thrust her hands under her dirty apron, and strove to look as portentous as her fat and frowsy person would permit.
“don’t let me have any more of your impertinence, young woman,” she said. “mr. jeffray’s in bed with the small-pox. there’s the long and short of it. i reckon you had better be moving.”
bess’s face had softened of a sudden, and there was a pathetic drooping of her mouth.
“mr. jeffray—ill!”
“didn’t i say so, saucy! the poor young gentleman’s quite out of his senses. here is mr. gladden coming down the stairs; he’s good at persuading them as are not wanted, to go.”
but bess did not wait for peter gladden’s advent. she turned away suddenly from mrs. barbara, and went down out of the porch with a look as of pain upon her face.
