Florence Warden

“ The excitement of the strange life she had led since leaving it had spoilt her for the old, calm, passionless existence. What! Never again to leave the shade of those quiet walls? Never to wander, as she now loved to do, about the ruined church of Saint Hilda, whose roofless walls, with their choir of wailing sea-birds, had grown to her ten times more sacred than the little convent-chapel? Never to see her father? Never to see—Dick?
At this thought she broke down, and resting her head upon her hands, let the tears come. And poor Dick had looked half-starved, so John Thurley said! ”

“ It seems ridiculous to like a person very much, fall in love as you call it, when you have only seen that person once, and can’t be sure at all what that person is really like.”
“Perhaps one can be surer than you think. At any rate I felt sure enough about you to make up my mind at once that you were the girl I should like to make my wife.”
“Wife!” echoed Freda in astonishment and even horror, “me! a cripple!”
“Yes, you, just as you are, little crutch and all. Now, child, will you have me? You don’t love me yet, but you will very soon, for I love you deeply, and you are loving. ”

“ He was not yet out of Freda’s sight when a sharp report, followed by a second, and then by a hoarse cry, broke upon their ears. There was silence for a moment, and then the sound of galloping hoofs upon the snow. A riderless horse, bearing a man’s saddle, came down the hill, with nostrils dilated and frightened eyes. Barnabas, who considered a horse as rather more a fellow-creature than a man, set to work to stop the animal before making his way to the human beings. ”

“ For Dick began to breathe hard, and to grow restless, as he said quickly:
“You see it’s not as if some young fellow of a suitable age, whom you—whom you—rather liked, could ever have a chance of—of asking you to be his wife. That would be a different thing altogether.”
“Ah, yes, if I were not lame! If I could ride, and row, and—and sail a boat!” said Freda with a quavering voice. ”

“ Captain Mulgrave hesitated. Then he tried to speak in a peremptory and angry voice, but broke down. Turning at last sharply to the assailant, who had been watching him with hungry intentness, he made a gesture towards the wounded man.
“Here, Crispin, help me—to take him in. We must obey the ladies,” he said with a hoarse and almost tremulous attempt at levity.
The grin died out of the lean and withered face, and Freda caught upon it an expression of so much baulked malignity that she wondered whether succour at these unwilling hands would mean death to the succoured one. ”

“ Freda looked thoughtful for a few minutes. Then she said:
“I don’t wish that. You see I’ve been obliged to think a great deal lately, and I see that there is a great deal more wickedness and unhappiness in the world than we in the convent ever thought of. And it seems to me that to shut oneself up out of it all and to try to make a little heaven for oneself and to keep apart from all the difficulties and miseries outside is selfish. So that I’m glad I can’t be so selfish any longer.” ”

“ She had been told where the Vicarage was, knew that she must turn to the left, and go down Church Street until she came to it. But the sound of her footsteps and her crutch on the rough stones of the narrow street frightened her. The little irregular, old-fashioned shops, with their overhanging eaves and tiny windows, seemed to the scared girl to have a threatening aspect; she fancied every moment that one of the desperate characters with whom her imagination peopled them was lying in wait for her at the entrance of one of the squalid courts which ran between the houses. ”

“ What had Robert Heritage meant by those words about the “impression,” she had made on Dick, and “putting in a good word for him.” Innocent as she was, Freda could scarcely misunderstand the drift of these expressions, and they roused a thought which brought the blood to her cheeks, all alone as she was, and stirred her strangely. She did not believe Robert; who was she, a little lame girl, to rouse any deep interest in a big, strong, handsome man like Dick? And with a sigh, the girl sat up among her books and tried to stir the log fire into a blaze. ”

“ Scarcely a trace was left of the south aisle or the south transept. Between the ruined west front and the pillars on the south side of the choir there was nothing left but grass-grown mounds of fallen masonry and one solitary pillar, massive and erect as when, seven hundred years ago, pious hands placed the stones which were to defy, through long centuries, the biting sea air, the keen north wind, the storms which beat upon the cliffs, and the waves which, decade by decade, had sapped and swallowed up, bit by bit, the once fertile Abbey lands. ”

“ She would not let him speak, but stamped her crutch impatiently on the stones. Barnabas was as weak as water with any one who had a will; whistling to himself as if to prove that he was carrying out his own intentions instead of somebody else’s, he went straight to the place where his horse was put up. Within ten minutes the cart was jogging down slowly through the crowded street, with Barnabas and Freda side by side on the seat, the farmer shouting to the crowd to keep out of the way. ”

“ This descent, though long, was much less difficult than her first trial of a rope-ladder in the secret-room of the Abbey; for the ladder was firmly fixed to a rock below into which two iron hooks had been driven. The greatest danger she had to contend with during the descent was the extreme cold, which benumbed her fingers, and made it scarcely possible for her to grasp the ropes, and to hold her crutch at the same time; the lantern she had extinguished and tied round her waist. At last her feet touched the solid rock: she drew a long breath of relief: she had reached the scaur. ”

“ Freda was trembling with triumph, but also with some apprehension. The Abbey was the only place to which she could take the wounded man, and yet she could not but fear that it might prove a very unsafe refuge. The little grinning man, whom they had left behind on the edge of the cliff, was a trusted person in her father’s mysterious house, and could go and come by secret ways, whenever he pleased. ”

“ There was nothing in the gallery but pictures, and a row of chairs. As she stood debating with herself, she heard footsteps, as it seemed to her, behind the panelling. In a frenzy of excitement she instantly blew out her candle, and scurried across the gallery to the furthest corner, where she crouched in a heap on the floor. She had not to wait long. A little scraping sound, and a panelled door opened from the other side. Then Freda heard a distant murmur of voices, and the next moment the man who had opened the door stepped into the gallery.
Freda need not have been afraid of discovery. ”

“ And he began to pace up and down the choir, with his eyes on the long rough grass at his feet, and his hands behind his back. Freda felt the very faint hope she had entertained of moving him by her entreaties melt utterly away as she watched him. The whole face of the man—the steadfast eyes, square jaw, resolute mouth—all indicated strength of purpose, and a will difficult to turn. ”

“ A great heap of freshly dug up snow stood almost in the middle of the road, and by the help of a shed on the right, Freda was able to identify the spot on which the body of the servant Blewitt had been discovered by Barnabas Ugthorpe.
Freda turned sick with horror. Her mind had jumped, with that splendid feminine inspiration which acts independently of logic, and which is as often marvellously right as stupendously wrong, to the conclusion that the body of Blewitt had been carried into the Abbey. ”

“ She had got them now! In an hour she would know all about it; she would be able to waylay and confront them, if she chose. And she almost thought she would choose.
Full of these ideas, Freda dressed hastily and ran downstairs. Nell was busy in the kitchen; the place was as deserted as usual. She stole out of the house with a loudly beating heart, feeling refreshed instead of chilled by the air of the keen March morning. Stealthily, with one eye on Nell’s quarters and one on her task, she began her tour, her excitement increasing as door after door was reached, and there was still no sign. ”

“ But even her kindness grated on Freda; it was hard, perfunctory, she thought. There was all the time, behind the thoughtful hospitality for her unexpected guest, some black care sitting, engrossing the best of her. Mrs. Heritage hurried on, through a labyrinth of rooms and passages, to an oaken door, old and worm-eaten, studded with rusty nails.
“This room,” she said, turning back as the door rolled slowly inwards, “is the one wreck of decent life on which we pride ourselves. It is the old banqueting-hall of the castle. ”

“ She had never, since that eventful night on the scaur, been able to meet her father again, to warn him to keep out of the way of his danger. Every night now she hid herself in the secret portion of the house, watching and waiting for him. But he never came. Every day she would go out to the cliff’s edge, looking out for the yacht; and then she would roam about the Abbey ruins, and listen at the door of the tower in the north transept, hoping to hear his voice or his tread. ”

“ The bare, ill-lighted cellar grew empty of all except the leader as if by magic, the men seeming to disappear into the bowels of the earth. As she looked, bending her head lower and lower with straining eyes to spy out the reason of this, Freda involuntarily drew a long breath of amazement. The solitary man left in the cellar looked up, as he was in the act of filling his own glass once more from the stone jar. The girl drew back with a cry, for a look of intense malignity passed over the man’s wrinkled face. ”

“ She was soon satisfied: first the distant mutterings, far underneath her feet, then the mounting of slow feet up stone steps; the voices subdued, but nearer; the moving of heavy burdens; a sound of weights falling; the chink of glasses; a low murmur of talk in men’s voices, the sounds gradually dying away. That was all. An hour, by the little clock on her mantelpiece, from the first sound to the last. Then all was quiet till morning, when Freda, after a disturbed night of short snatches of sleep, woke with a start to the memory of her undertaking. ”

“ How can you be sorry for a father you don’t remember?”
“Oh,” said Freda, with a sob, “can’t you understand? You can love a person without knowing him, just as we love God, whom we can never see till we die.” ”

“ Her voice sank on the last word, and the tears started again.
When Crispin answered, which was not at once, his voice was scarcely so harsh as before, though he spoke rather scoffingly.
“Women are always full of fancies. I don’t wonder your father couldn’t stand them!”
It was Freda’s turn to laugh now.
“Oh,” she cried, “then I knew him better than you after all. For he loved one woman so well that he could never bear to look at another after she died. And he left his own daughter among women, nothing but women. ”

“ So she cried out in a clear voice:
“It is I, Freda Mulgrave; I have come down here to escape being carried off to London by John Thurley. Who are you?”
The man raised to the level of his face a dark lantern, turning its rays full upon himself. The girl, in spite of the fact that she was prepared to keep her feelings well under control, gave a cry of joy. ”

“ But Freda was too much excited and exasperated to show a sign of fear now.
“You dare not hurt me,” she cried, in her high, girlish voice, that echoed among the cliffs. “If this poor man dies you may escape; but if you kill me, my father will not let you live another day.” ”

“ Sounds as of a man’s footsteps coming up a stone staircase, coming up unsteadily, with many pauses. Sounds, too, as of heavy weights being dragged up, and of suppressed laughter and jeers.
“Eh, but tha’s gotten aboot as much as tha’ can carry, eh, Crispin?” said one voice.
“Tha’ couldn’t climb oop a mast to-night, Crispin,” said another, during the laughter which succeeded the first speech.
The voice of the man who was on the stairs answered, in low and husky tones. Although he was the nearest to her, Freda could not distinguish what he said, except the word “hush.” ”

“ At the end of the ten days, however, it seemed to Freda one morning that the patches of green on the snow-covered fields had grown much wider; and she said, first to herself and then to Nell, that the roads, if not yet clear, must now be passable to and from the town. Mrs. Bean looked at her out of the corners of her eyes.
“What you, coming from a walled-up convent, can want with walks, is more than I can understand. However, you can go over the ruins if you like.” ”