The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 Part 17

And now a strange time followed. I saw no more of that visitor that had come to the house lately, nor knew at what time he went away, or if he had attained the end he sought. My mistress busied me mostly in the lower part of the house, and went out very little herself, keeping on me all the while a strict guard and surveillance beyond her wont.

But at last a charitable call came to her, which she never refused; and so she left me alone, with instructions to remain between the kitchen and the street-door, and by no means to leave the house or to hold discourse with any that came, more than need be.

I sat alone in the kitchen, fretting a little against her injunctions, and calling to mind the merry evenings in the parlour at home, where I had sported and gossiped with my comrades. I loved not solitude, and sighed to think that I had now nothing to listen to but the great clock against the wall, nothing to speak to but the cat that purred at my feet.

I was, however, presently to have company that I little expected. For, as I sat with my seam in my hand, I heard a step upon the stairs; and yet I had let none into the house, but esteemed myself alone there.

It came from above, where was an upper chamber, and a loft little used.

My heart beat quickly, so that I was afraid to go out into the pa.s.sage, for there I must meet that which descended, man or spirit as it might be. I heard the foot on the lowest stair, and then it turned towards the little closet where my mistress often sat alone at her devotions.

While it lingered there I wondered whether I should rush out into the street, and seek the help and company of some neighbour. But I remembered Mrs. Gaunt's injunction; and, moreover, another thought restrained me. It was that of the man that I had let into the house and never seen again. It might well be that he had never left the place, and that I should be betraying a secret by calling in a stranger to look at him.

So I stood trembling by the deal table until the step sounded again and came on to the kitchen.

[Sidenote: The Man Again]

The door opened, and a man stood there. It was the same whom I had seen before.

He looked round quickly, and gave me a courteous greeting; his manner was, indeed, pleasant enough, and there was nothing in his look to set a maid trembling at the sight of him.

"I am in luck," he said, "for I heard Mrs. Gaunt go out some time since, and I am sick of that upper chamber where she keeps me shut up."

"If she keeps you shut up, sir," I said, his manner giving me back all my self-possession, "sure she has some very good reason."

"Do you know her reason?" he asked with abruptness.

"No, nor seek to know it, unless she chooses to tell me. I did not even guess that she had you in hiding."

"Mrs. Gaunt is careful, but I can trust the lips that now reprove me.

They were made for better things than betraying a friend. I would willingly have some good advice from them, seeing that they speak wise words so readily." And so saying he sat down on the settle, and looked at me smiling.

I was offended, and with reason, at the freedom of his speech; yet, his manner, was so much beyond anything I had been accustomed to for ease and pleasantness, that I soon forgave him, and when he encouraged me, began to prattle about my affairs, being only, with all my conceit, the silly la.s.sie my mistress had called me.

I talked of my home and my own kindred, and the friends I had had--which things had now all the charm of remoteness for me--and he listened with interest, catching up the names of places, and even of persons, as if they were not altogether strange to him, and asking me further of them.

"What could make you leave so happy a home for such a dungeon as this?"

he asked, looking round.

Then I hung my head, and reddened foolishly, but he gave a loud laugh and said, "I can well understand. There was some country lout that your father would have wedded you to. That is the way with the prettiest maidens."

"Tom Windham was no country lout," I answered proudly; upon which he leaned forward and asked, "What name was that you said? Windham? and from Westover? Is he a tall fellow with straw-coloured hair and a cut over his left eye?"

"He got it in a good cause," I answered swiftly; "have you seen him?"

"Yes, lately. It is the same. Lucky fellow! I would I were in his place now." And he fell straightway into a moody taking, looking down as if he had forgotten me.

"Sir, do you say so?" I stammered foolishly, "when--when----"

"When you have run away from him? Not for that, little maid;" and he broke again into a laugh that had mischief in it. "But because when we last met he was in luck and I out of it, yet we guessed it not at the time."

"I am glad he is doing well," I said proudly.

"Then should you be sorry for me that am in trouble," he answered. "For I have no home now, nor am like to have, but must go beyond seas and begin a new life as best I may."

"I am indeed sorry, for it is sad to be alone. If Mrs. Gaunt had not been kind to me----"

[Sidenote: Interrupted]

"And to me," he interrupted, "we should never have met. She is a good woman, your mistress Gaunt."

"Yet, I have heard that beyond seas there are many diversions," I answered, to turn the talk from myself, seeing that he was minded to be too familiar.

"For those that start with good company and pleasant companions. If I had a pleasant companion, one that would smile upon me with bright eyes when I was sad, and scold me with her pretty lips when I went astray--for there is nothing like a pretty Puritan for keeping a careless man straight."

"Oh, sir!" I cried, starting to my feet as he put his hand across the deal table to mine; and then the door opened and Elizabeth Gaunt came in.

"Sir," she said, "you have committed a breach of hospitality in entering a chamber to which I have never invited you. Will you go back to your own?"

He bowed with a courteous apology and muttered something about the temptation being too great. Then he left us alone.

"Child," she said to me, "has that man told you anything of his own affairs?"

"Only that he is in trouble, and must fly beyond seas."

"Pray G.o.d he may go quickly," she said devoutly. "I fear he is no man to be trusted."

"Yet you help him," I answered.

"I help many that I could not trust," she said with quietness; "they have the more need of help." And in truth I know that much of her good work was among those evil-doers that others shrank from.

"This man seems strong enough to help himself," I said.

"Would that he may go quickly," was all her answer. "If the means could but be found!"

Then she spoke to me with great urgency, commanding me to hold no discourse with him nor with any concerning him.

I did my best to fulfil her bidding, yet it was difficult; for he was a man who knew the world and how to take his own way in it. He contrived more than once to see me, and to pay a kind of court to me, half in jest and half in earnest; so that I was sometimes flattered and sometimes angered, and sometimes frighted.

Then other circ.u.mstances happened unexpectedly, for I had a visitor that I had never looked to see there.

I kept indoors altogether, fearing to be questioned by the neighbours; but on a certain afternoon there came a knocking, and when I went to open Tom Windham walked in.

I gave a cry of joy, because the sight of an old friend was pleasant in that strange place, and it was not immediately that I could recover myself and ask what his business was.

"I came to seek you," he said, "for I had occasion to leave my own part of the country for the present."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "LOOKING AT HIM, I SAW THAT HE WAS HAGGARD AND STRANGE."]