Shrewsbury: A Romance Page 8

  CHAPTER VII

  How long I hung at the window, at one time stunned and stricken downby the catastrophe that had befallen me, and at another feelingfrantically for the ladder which I had over and over again made surewas not there, I know no more than another; but only that after atime, first suspicion and then rage darted lightning-like through thestupor that clouded my mind, and I awoke to all the tortures that loveoutraged by treachery can feel; with such pangs and terrors added asonly a faithful beast, bound and doomed and writhing under the knifeof its master, may be supposed to endure.

  For a while, it is true, imagining that Jennie, terrified by someone'sapproach, had lowered the ladder and withdrawn herself, and so wouldpresently return to free me, I hoped against hope. But as minutespassed, and yet more minutes, laden only with the cricket's evenchirp, and the creepy rustling of the wind in the poplars, and stillfailed to bring her, the sound of retreating hoofs which I had heardrecurred to my mind, with dreadful significance, and on the top of ita hundred suspicious circumstances; among which, as her sudden passionwhen I had taken fright at the foot of the ladder, was not the least,so her avoidance of me during the last few days and her frequentabsences from the house, spoken to by Mrs. Harris, had their weight.In fine, by the light of her desertion after receiving the plunder,and while I sought the candlesticks--which I had now convinced myselfwere not there--many things obscure before, or to which I had wilfullyshut my eyes--as her callousness, her greed, her recklessness--stoodout plainly; while these again, being coolly considered, reflected soseriously on her, as to give her sudden departure the worst possibleappearance, even in a lover's eyes. The days had been when I would nothave believed such a thing of her at the mouth of an angel fromHeaven. But much had happened since, to which my passion had blindedme, temporarily only; so that it needed but a flash of searing lightto make all clear, and convince me that she had not only left me, butleft me trapped--I who had given up all and risked all for her!

  In the first agony of pain and rage wrought by a conviction sohorrible, I could think only of her treachery and my loss; and head toknees on the bare floor of the room, I wept as if my heart wouldbreak, or choked with the sobs that seemed to rend my breast. Andlittle wonder, seeing that I had given her a boy's first devotion, andthat of all sins ingratitude has the sharpest tooth! But to thisparoxysm, when I had nearly exhausted myself, came an end and anantidote in the shape of urgent fear; which suddenly flooding my soul,roused me from my apathy of grief, and set me to pacing the room in adreadful panic, trying now the door and now the window. But on both myattacks were in vain, the former being locked and resisting thechisel, while the latter hung thirty feet above the paved yard.

  Thus caught and snared, as neatly as any bird in a springe, I had noresource but in my wits; and for a time, as I had nothing of which Icould form a rope, I busied myself with the expedient of throwing outthe featherbed and leaping upon it. But when I had dragged it to thewindow, and came to measure the depth, I recoiled, as the mostdesperate might, from the leap; and softly returning the bed to itsplace, I fell to biting my nails, or fitfully roamed from place toplace, according as despair or some new hope possessed me.

  In one or other of these moods the dawn found me; and then in asurprisingly short time I heard the dreaded sounds of life awakenround me, and creeping to the window I closed it, and crouched down onthe floor. Presently Mrs. Harris began to stir, and a boy walkedwhistling shrilly across the adjacent yard; and then--strangest of allthings, and not to be invented--in the crisis of my fate, with thefeet of those who must detect me almost on the stairs, I fell asleep;and awoke only when a key grated in the lock of the room, and Istarted up to find Mr. D---- in the doorway staring at me, and behindhim a crowd of piled-up faces.

  "Why, Price?" he cried, with a look of stupefaction, as he came slowlyinto the room, "what is the meaning of this?"

  Then I suppose my shame and guilty silence told him, for with a suddenscowl and an oath he strode to the bureau and dragged out the drawer.A glance showed him that the money was gone, and shouting franticallyto those at the door to keep it--to keep it, though they werehalf-a-dozen to one!--he clutched me by the breast of my coat, andshook me until my teeth chattered.

  "Give it up," he cried, spluttering with rage. "Give it up, youbeggar's brat! Or, by heaven, you shall hang for it."

  But as I had nothing to give up, and could not speak, I burst intotears; which with the odd part I had played in staying in the room tobe taken, and perhaps my youth and innocent air, aroused theneighbours' surprise; who, crowding round, asked him solicitously whatwas missing. He answered after a moment's hesitation, sixty guineas.One had already clapped his hands over my clothes, and another hadforced my mouth open; but on this they desisted, and stood, full ofadmiration.

  "He cannot have swallowed that," said the most active, gaping at me.

  "No, that is certain. But what beats me," said another, looking round,"is how he got here."

  "To say nothing of why he stayed here!" replied the former.

  "I'll tell you what," quoth a third, shaking his head. "There is somehocus-pocus in this. And I should not wonder, neighbours, if theCatholics were at the bottom of it!"

  The theory appeared to commend itself to more than one--for they wereall of the fanatical party; but it was swept to the winds by theentrance of Mrs. D----, who having heard of robbery, came in like awhirlwind, her face on fire, and made no more ado, but rushed upon me,and tore and slapped my cheeks with all her might, crying with eachblow, "You nasty thief, will that teach you better manners? That foryour roguery! and that! Oh, you jail bird, I'll teach you!"

  How long she would have continued to chastise me I cannot say, but herhusband presently stepped in to protect me, and being thoroughlywinded, she let me go pretty willingly. But when she learned, havinghitherto been under the impression that I had been seized in the actwith the money upon me, that the latter could not be found, her faceturned yellow and she sat down in a chair.

  "Have you searched?" she gasped.

  "Everywhere," the neighbours answered her.

  "He must have thrown it through the window."

  They shook their heads.

  On that she jumped up, and looked at me with a cold spite in her facethat made me shiver. "Then I will tell you what it is," she said, "hehas given it to that hussy, and she has taken it! But I will have itout of him; where the money is, and she is, and how he got in! Mr.D----, when you have done standing there like a gaby, fetch yourstoutest cane; and do you, my friends, lay him across that bed! And ifwe do not cut it out of his skin, his name is not Richard Price. Iwish I had the wench here, and I would serve her the same!"

  I screamed, and fell on my knees as they laid hands on me; but Mrs.D---- was a woman without bowels, and the men were complaisant and notunwilling to see the cruel sport of the usher flogged, and theschoolmaster disciplined; and it would have gone hard with me, inspite of my prayers, if the constable had not arrived at that moment,and requested with dignity to see his prisoner. Introduced to me, hestared; and, moved I believe by an impulse of pity, said I was youngto hang.

  "Ay, but not too good!" Mrs. D---- answered shrilly, her headtrembling with passion. "He and the hussy, that is gone, have robbedme of eighty guineas in a green bag, as I am prepared to swear!"

  "Sixty, Mrs. D----," said her husband, looking a warning at her andthen askance at his neighbours.

  "Rot take the man, does it matter to a guinea or two?" sheretorted--but her sallow face flushed a little. "At any rate," shecontinued, pressing her thin lips together, and nodding her headviciously, "sixty or eighty, they have taken them."

  It seemed, however, that even to that one of the neighbours had a wordto say. "As to the girl, I am not so sure, Mrs. D----," he struck inponderously. "If she is the wench that has been carrying on with thegentleman at the 'Rose,' she has had other fish to fry. Though I don'tsay, mind you, that she has _not_ been in this. Only----"

  But Mrs. D----
could restrain herself no longer. "Only! only!Gentlemen at the 'Rose'!" she cried. "Why, man, are you mad? What doyou think has my maid--though maid she is not, but a dirty drab, andmore is the pity I took her out of charity from the parish--she wasKitty Higgs's base-born brat as you know--what has she to do withgentlemen at the 'Rose'?"

  "Well, that is not for me to say," the man answered quietly. "Only Iknow that for a week or more a wench has been walking with thegentleman in the roads and so forth, by night as well as by day. Icame on them twice myself hard by here; and though she was dressedmore like a fine madam than a serving girl, I watched her into yourhouse. And for the rest, Mrs. Harris must know more than I do."

  But Mrs. Harris, when Mrs. D---- turned on her in a white rage, couldonly cover her head and weep in a corner; as much, I believe, out ofsorrow for me as on her own account. However, the fact that thegood-natured woman had left Jennie pretty much to her own devicescould not be gainsaid; and Mrs. D---- had much to say on it. But whenshe talked of sending after the baggage and jailing her, ay, and thegentleman at the "Rose" too, if he could not pay the money, theconstable pursed up his lips.

  "It is to be remembered that he came with His Royal Highness, ourgracious Prince," he said, swelling out his chest and puffing out hischeeks with importance. "And though it is true he ordered his horsesand went for London last evening--as I know myself, having seen himgo, and seen him before for the matter of that at Hertford Assizes,for he is a Counsellor--it does not follow that the wench went withhim. Or, if she did, Mrs. D----, ----"

  "That she had anything to do with this money," the neighbour who hadspoken before put in.

  "Precisely, Mr. Jenkins," the constable answered. "You are a man ofsense. For my part," he continued, looking round a little defiantly,"I am no Whig, and I am not for meddling with Court gentlemen, andleast of all lawyers. And if you will take my advice, Mr. D----, youwill be satisfied to lay this young jail-bird by the heels; and if hedoes not speak before the rope is round his neck, it is not likelythat you will get your money other ways. But, lord," the good man wenton, standing back from me, to view me the better, "he is young to besuch a villain! It is 'broke and entered,' too, and so he will swingfor it." And he took off his hat and wiped his bald head, while hegazed at me between pity and admiration.

  Mrs. D----, who was very far from sharing either of these feelings,would have had me taken at once before a Justice and committed. Butthe constable, partly to prove his importance, and partly, I believe,to give me a chance of disclosing where the money lay, before it wastoo late, would have the house and garden searched, and all the boysexamined; under the impression that I might have had one of these formy accomplice. Naturally, however, nothing came of this, except thediscovery that I had been out of nights lately; which had scarcelybeen made when who should appear on the scene, in an unlucky hour forme, but the gentleman who had identified me outside the gaming room atthe "Rose." As he had come for the very purpose of laying a complaintagainst me, his story destroyed the last scrap of my credit, byexhibiting me as a secret rake; and this removing all doubt of myguilt, if any were still entertained even by Mrs. Harris, it wasdetermined to convey me, dinner over, to Sir Baldwin Winston's, atAbbot's Stanstead, to be committed; the two Justices who resided inWare being at the moment disabled.

  All this time, and while my fate was being decided, I listened to oneand another in a dull despair, which deprived me of the power todefend myself; and from which nothing less than Mrs. D----'s atrociousproposal to flog me, until I gave up the money, could draw me, andthat only for a moment. Conscious of my guilt, and seized in the actand on the scene of my crime, I beheld only the near and certainprospect of punishment; while I had not the temptation to tell all,and inform against my crafty accomplice, to which a knowledge of herdestination must have exposed me. Besides--and I think a great part ofmy apathy was due to this--I still felt the stunning effects of theblow which her cruel treachery had dealt me. I saw her in her truelight; and as I sat, weeping silently, and seeming to those whowatched me, little moved, I was thinking at least as much of the pastand my love, and her craft, as of the fate that lay before me.

  Though this was presently brought vividly before me, and of allpersons by Mrs. Harris. Mrs. D---- of herself would have given meneither bit nor sup in the house; but the constable insisting that theKing's prisoner must be fed, Mrs. Harris, tearful and shaking, wasallowed to bring me some broken victuals. These set before me, thegood soul, instead of retiring, pottered aimlessly about the room; andby and by got behind me; on which, or rather a moment later, I feltsomething cold and sharp at the nape of my neck and started up.Bursting into a flood of tears she plumped down on a seat, and I sawthat she had a pair of scissors and a scrap of my hair in her hand.

  "Good Lord!" I said.

  Doubtless the tone in which I spoke betrayed me, for the constable'sman who was in charge of me laughed brutally. "Gad, if he does notthink she did it out of love!" he cried, speaking to a friend who wassitting with him. "When all the old dame wants is a charm for therheumatics; and she thinks the chance too good to be lost."

  Then I remembered that the hair of a hanged man is in that part heldto be sovereign for the rheumatics; and I sat down feeling cold andfaint.