Anne Hereford. Mrs. Henry Wood
"Thank ye," said Duff. "I'd be glad on't."
She was placing the cup before him, when he suddenly leaned forward from the chair he had taken, speaking in a covert whisper.
"I say, who do you think was in the wood, a-scouring it, up one path and down another, as much as ever we was?"
"Who?" asked the servants in a breath.
"The young missis. She hadn't got an earthly thing on her but just what she sits in, indoors. Her hair was down, and her neck and arms was bare; and there she was, a-racing up and down like one demented."
"Tush!" said the cook. "You must have seen double. What should bring young madam dancing about the wood, Duff, at this time o' night?"
"I tell ye I see her. I see her three times over. Maybe she was looking for Mr. Heneage, too. At any rate, there she was, and with nothing on, as if she'd started out in a hurry, and had forget to dress herself. And if she don't catch a cold, it's odd to me," added Duff. "The fog's as thick as pea-soup, and wets you worse than rain. 'Twas enough to give her her death."
Duff's report was true. As he spoke, a bell called Jemima up again. She came back, laid hold of me without speaking, and took me to the drawing-room. Mrs. Edwin Barley stood there, just come in: she was shaking like a leaf, with the damp and cold, her hair dripping wet. When she had seen her husband leave the hall in search of George Heneage, an impulse came over her to follow and interpose between the anger of the two, should they meet. At least, partly this, partly to look after George Heneage herself, and warn him to escape. She gave me this explanation openly.
"I could not find him," she said, kneeling down before the fire, and holding out her shivering arms to the blaze. "I hope and trust he has escaped. One man's life is enough for me to have upon my hands, without having two."
"Oh, Aunt Selina! you did not take Philip King's life!"
"No, I did not take it. And I have been guilty of no intentional wrong. But I did set the one against the other, Anne--in my vanity and wilfulness."
Looking back to the child's eyes with which I saw things then, and judging of these same things with my woman's experience now, I can but hold Selina Barley entirely to blame. An indulged daughter, born when her sister Ursula was nearly grown, she had been suffered to have her own way at Keppe-Carew, and grew up to think the world was made for her. Dangerously attractive, fond to excess of admiration, she had probably encouraged Philip King's boyish fancy, and then turned round upon him for it. At the previous Easter, on his former visit, she had been all smiles and sweetness; this time she had done nothing but turn him into ridicule. "What is sport to you may be death to me," says the fly to the spider. It might not have mattered so much from her, this ridicule; but she pressed George Heneage into the service: and Philip King was not of a disposition to bear it tamely. His weak health made him appear somewhat of a coward; he was not strong enough to take the law into his own hands, and repay Mr. Heneage with personal chastisement. Selina's liking for George Heneage was no doubt great; but it was not an improper liking, although the world--the little world at Mr. Edwin Barley's--might have wished to deem it so. Before she married Mr. Edwin Barley, she refused George Heneage, and laughed at him for proposing to her. She should wed a rich man, she told him, or none at all. It was Mr. Edwin Barley himself who invited Heneage to his house, and also Philip King, as it most unfortunately happened. His wife, in her wilful folly--I had almost written her wilful wickedness--played them off, one upon another. The first day they met, Philip King took umbrage at some remark of Mr. Heneage's, and Selina, liking the one, and disliking the other, forthwith began. A few days on, and young King so far forgot his good manners as to tell her she "liked that Coxcomb Heneage too much." The reproach made her laugh; but she, nevertheless, out of pure mischief, did what she could to confirm Philip King in the impression. He, Philip King, took to talk of this to Miss Delves; he took to watch Selina and George Heneage; there could be little doubt that he carried tales of his observation to Mr. Edwin Barley, which only incited Selina to persevere; the whole thing amused her immensely. What passed between Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Barley, in private about it, whether anything or nothing, was never known. At the moment of the accident he was exceedingly vexed with her; incensed may be the proper word.
And poor Philip King! perhaps, after all, his death may have been a mistake--if it was in truth George Heneage that it proceeded from. Circumstances, as they came out, seemed to say that he had not been "spying," but only taking the short cut through the summer-house on his way home from shooting; an unusual route, it's true, but not an impossible one. Seeing them on the other side when he entered it, he waited until they should proceed onwards; but Mrs. Barley's sudden run up the steps sent him away. Not that he would avoid them; only make his escape, without their seeing him, lest he should be accused of the very thing they did accuse him of--spying. But he was too late; the creaking of the outer door betrayed him. At least this was the opinion taken up by Mr. Martin, later, when Selina told the whole truth to him, under the seal of secrecy.
But Mrs. Edwin Barley was kneeling before the fire in the drawing-room, with her dripping hair; and I standing by her looking on; and that first terrible night was not over.
"Selina, why did you stay out in the wet fog?"
"I was looking for him, I tell you, Anne."
"But you had nothing on. You might have caught your death, Duff said."
"And what if I had?" she sharply interrupted. "I'd as soon die as live."
It was one of her customary random retorts, meaning nothing. Before more was said, strange footsteps and voices were heard on the stairs. Selina started up, and looked at herself in the glass.
"I can't let them see me like this," she muttered, clutching her drooping hair. "You wait here, Anne."
Darting to the side-door she had spoken of as leading to her bedroom, she pulled it open with a wrench, as if a bolt had given way, and disappeared, leaving me standing on the hearth-rug.
CHAPTER IV.
VERY ILL.
He who first entered the room was a gentleman of middle age and size. His complexion was healthy and ruddy; his short dark hair, sprinkled with grey, was combed down upon the forehead: his countenance was good-natured and simple. This was Mr. Barley of the Oaks. Not the least resemblance did he bear to his brother. Following him was one in an official dress, who was probably superior to a common policeman, for his manners were good, and Mr. Barley called him "Sir." It was not the same who had been in the hall.
"Oh, this--this must be the little girl," observed Mr. Barley. "Are you Mrs. Edwin's niece, my dear--Miss Hereford?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Do you know where she is?"
"In her bedroom, I think, sir."
It had transpired that a quarrel had taken place the previous Friday between Mr. Heneage and Philip King; and the officer had now been in the kitchen to question Jemima. Jemima disclaimed all knowledge of the affair, beyond the fact that she had heard of it from little Miss Hereford, whom she saw on the stairs, crying and frightened. He had now come to question me.
"Now, my little maid, try and recollect," said the officer, drawing me to him. "What did they quarrel about?"
"I don't know, sir," I answered. And I spoke the literal truth, for I had not understood at the time.
"Can you not recollect?"
"I can recollect," I said, looking at him, and feeling that I did not shrink from him, though he was a policeman. "Mr. King seemed to have done something wrong, for Mr. Heneage was angry with him, and called him a spy; but I did not know what it was that he had done. I was too frightened to listen; I ran out of the room."
"Then you did not hear what the quarrel was about?"
"I did not understand, sir. Except that they said that Mr. King was mean, and a spy."
"They!"