Stanley John Weyman

“ Anthony Clyne had made no moan, but, both in his pride and his better feelings, he had suffered more than the world thought through Henrietta’s elopement. He was not in love with the girl whom he had chosen for his second wife and the mother of his motherless child. But no man likes to be jilted. No man, even the man least in love, can bear with indifference or without mortification the slur which the woman’s desertion casts on him. ”

“ The sleeve had fallen back from her wrist, and the gipsy lad’s eyes rested long and freely on the white roundness of her arm. Her fair complexion seduced him as no dark beauty had power to seduce. He eyed her as the tiger eyes the fawn before it springs from covert. Bess, who read his looks as if they had been an open book, and who saw that Giles, her one dependence, was growing more sullen and dangerous with every draught, could have struck Henrietta for her fatuous stolidity.
One thing was clear. The longer she put off the move, the more dangerous the men were like to be. ”

“ Were they right, then, who preached that outside the sanctum of home no girl was safe? Or was it her story, her conduct, her disgrace, known to all for miles round, that robbed her of the right to respect?
Either way she was unhappy, frightened, nay, shocked; and she longed to be within doors, where she need not restrain herself. Too proud to confide in Mrs. Gilson, she longed none the less for some one to whom she could unburden herself. Was she to go through the world exposed to such scenes? Must she be daily and hourly on her guard against rude insult, or more odious gallantries? ”

“ Had the chaplain been told a fortnight before that he would wait with bated breath for an old woman’s opinion of a document, he would have laughed at the notion. But so it was; and when a ray of comprehension broke the frowning perplexity of Mrs. Gilson’s face, and she muttered, “Lord ha’ mercy! The villain!” still more when an April cloud of mingled anger and pity softened her massive features—the chaplain’s relief was itself a picture.
“A plague on the rascal!” the good woman cried. “He’s put it so as to melt a stone, let alone a silly child like that! ”

“ Below them the white-washed walls and slated roofs and mills of Kendal could be seen clustering about the Castle Bow and the old grey ruin that rises above the Ken river. On either hand bleak hills, seamed with grey walls, made up a landscape that rose without beauty to a lowering sky. There were few trees, no hedges; and somewhere the cracked bell of a drugget factory or a dye-works was clanging out a monotonous summons. To Henrietta’s eye—fresh from the lake-side verdure—and still more to her heart, the northern landscape struck cold and cheerless. ”

“ The forlorn child who had flung herself into her lover’s arms not forty seconds before was not to be recognised in the girl who alighted slowly and with gay self-possession, took in the scene at a glance, and won the hearts of ostler and stableboy by her ease and her fresh young beauty. She was bare-headed, and her high-dressed hair, a little disordered by the journey, gleamed in the lanthorn-light. Her eyes were like stars. The landlord of the inn—known for twenty miles round as “Long Tom Gilson”—saw at a glance that the missus’s tongue would run on her. ”

“ Bess stood her ground, but with a dark face thrust her hand into her bosom—probably for a knife. She never drew it, however. Before Giles could touch her, or Lunt, who was coasting about the long table to come at Henrietta, had compassed half the distance—there was a knock at the door.
It was a small thing, but it was enough. It checked the men as effectually as if it had been the knell of doom. They hung arrested, eye questioning eye; or, in turn, tip-toeing to gain their weapons, they cast looks of menace at the women. And they listened with murder in their eyes. ”

“ The notion of her union with Mr. Sutton, good, worthy man as he deemed the chaplain, now jarred on him unpleasantly. And more and more the scheme showed itself in another light than that in which he had first viewed it.
Such was his state of mind, unsettled if not unhappy, and harassed if not remorseful, when a second thunderclap burst above his head, and in a moment destroyed even the memory of these minor troubles. He loved his child with the love of the proud and lonely man who loves more jealously where others pity, and clings more closely where others look askance. A fig for their pity! ”

“ Bess rejoined, with incredulity. “You’re not one to venture yourself out after moonrise, I’ll be bound. And so I told him! But any way,” sliding to her feet, and speaking with decision, “he’s not here, and you can’t see him! And to tell the truth, I’d as lief have your room as your company, that being so.”
She turned to the door as if to open it. But Henrietta did not move. She was deep in thought. The sneering words, the dark handsome face, filled her with distrust; and with something like loathing of herself when she reflected that the man she sought had been this girl’s lover. ”

“ Nor are women with a sharp tongue and a warm heart. Yet when Mrs. Gilson died in the year of those very riots, and at a good age, there was a gathering to bury her in Troutbeck graveyard as great as if she had been a Lowther. The procession, horse and foot, was a mile long. And when those who knew her least wondered whence all these moist eyes and this flocking to do honour to a woman who had been quick of temper and rough of tongue—ay, were it to Squire Bolton of Storrs, or the rich Mr. Rogers himself—there was one who came a great distance to the burying who could have solved the riddle. ”

“ Astonishment had given place to horror, and resentment to pity. In women, even the youngest, there is a secret tenderness for children; and the thought of this child, cast lame and helpless into the hands of strangers, and exposed, in place of the care to which he had been accustomed all his life, to brutality and hardships, pierced the crust of jealousy and melted the woman’s heart. Her eyes filled with tears, and through the tears indignation burned. For a moment even the insult which Anthony Clyne had put upon her was forgotten. ”

“ But the colour had faded as quickly as it had risen; she had restrained herself, and taken her seat. And now the screes of Bow Fell, flecked with snow, were not more cold and hard than her face as she gazed at the postilion’s moving back and saw it not. She knew that she was down now without hope of rising; that, the prison doors once closed on her, their shadow would rest on her always. And her heart was numbed by despair. The burning sense of injustice, of unfairness, which sears and hardens the human heart more quickly and more completely than any other emotion, would awaken presently. ”

“ When Henrietta rose on the second morning of her imprisonment, and opened her door and looked out, she met with an unpleasant surprise. Snow had fallen in the night, and lay almost an inch deep in the yard. The sheet of dazzling white cast the dingy spiked wall and the mean cell-doors into grey relief. But it was not this contrast, nor the memory of childish winters with their pleasures—though that memory took her by the throat and promised to choke her—that filled her with immediate dismay. ”

“ The men followed Bess’s lead, and as they supped never ceased to make Henrietta the butt of odious jests and more odious gallantries; until, now pale, now red, the girl was eager to welcome any issue from a position so hateful. Once, stung beyond reason, she sprang up and would have fled from them, with burning ears. But Bess seized her by the shoulders and thrust her back violently into her seat; and, sobered by the force used to her, and terrified lest the men should lay hands on her, she resigned herself. ”

“ D’you know no more of women than that? Why, I’ve kept my mouth shut the last ten blessed minutes for nothing else but to see what a fool you’d make of yourself! And for certain it was not for nothing!”
Henrietta tapped the table.
“Perhaps when you’ve done,” she said, with tragic dignity, “you will both be good enough to leave the room. I desire to be alone.”
Her eyes were like stars. In her voice was an odd mixture of elation and alarm.
Mrs. Gilson turned on the instant and engaged her.
“Don’t talk nonsense!” she said. “Desire to be alone indeed! ”