CHAPTER XII. AN ALARM.
The next two days were days such as Mrs. Graham-Shute loved, full of bustle and confusion, and needless noise. She herself went out early in the morning to call upon the Brownes, and to enlist them in her service as foils to Lilith’s charms. The Brownes saw through her motives, and discussed them among themselves in the frankest manner. But they were ready for any fun that might be going, as people in the country are, and at least they could go and laugh at her, which was the usual reason privately given for the acceptance of one of Mrs. Graham-Shute’s invitations.
In the meantime, as she had shrewdly expected, all the real work was left to Chris, who had to search through old wardrobes, devise costumes, and decide upon all the arrangements necessary for transforming the deserted barn into a comfortable and draught-tight theatre. Here Mrs. Graham-Shute was too modest even to make a suggestion.
“I’m quite sure, my dear Miss Abercarne, that you are quite equal to seeing to all these little matters. Of course, I couldn’t undertake to do everything myself.”
So Mrs. Graham-Shute went to call upon the Brownes, while Chris and her mother worked and tired themselves out at home. As for Lilith and Rose, they simply washed their hands of the whole affair, and contented themselves with begging Chris not to work so hard, and not to worry herself. “Mamma was always doing these things, and people were used to the way in which she did them.” Lilith occupied herself solely with her own costumes, with which she required a great deal of help, and which she thought were the only things that anybody need trouble themselves about. Rose was completely apathetic, and made no offer of assistance; and she was of very little use when persuaded to lend a hand.
All this Chris would not have minded much if the attentions of Donald had not been the last straw. Having received encouragement from his mother, he pursued Chris all day long, getting in her way, and boring her so much, that, on the second afternoon, she was at last fain to get rid of him by sending him into the town to buy tapes and buttons.
Mr. Graham-Shute took refuge in the study, where he bored John Bradfield by talking politics, which his host hated.
It was about three o’clock in the afternoon when a knock at the study door was hailed by Mr. Bradfield as affording a hope of release.
“Come in!” cried he; and Stelfox entered.
Both the gentlemen saw at once, by the disturbed expression of the usually stolid face, that something had happened.
“Well, what is it?” asked his master testily.
The next moment, with a glance at Graham-Shute, Mr. Bradfield jumped up, and, making a step towards an inner door, which led into the library, made a sign to Stelfox to follow him.
But Mr. Graham-Shute’s curiosity was roused.
“Eh—what? What, it’s something about that lunatic of yours, Bradfield, I’m sure!” he cried excitedly. “He has got into some mischief or other! I knew he would while I was here. What—what is it, Stelfox? Has the creature got away, or what?”
Stelfox nodded.
“That’s it, sir,” he said.
John Bradfield, who had reached the library door, reeled abruptly round.
“Got away—again? Good heavens!”
Mr. Graham-Shute was fidgetting nervously about the room. Stelfox stood like a rock.
“Then why—why on earth don’t you go after him?” said Mr. Graham-Shute.
John Bradfield interrupted his querulous questions.
“When did you find it out, and what have you done?”
“I found it out a couple of hours ago, sir, and I’ve been hunting high and low ever since, and I’ve had some of the men helping me. Of course, it all had to be done on the quiet, so as not to frighten the ladies.”
“Yes, for heaven’s sake don’t let my wife hear of it,” moaned Mr. Graham-Shute, “or she’ll give us twice as much trouble as any lunatic. Do you think he’s anywhere about the house?”
Stelfox glanced at his master, who had turned deadly white at the suggestion.
“I don’t think so, sir.”
Mr. Bradfield appeared suddenly to rouse himself from the sort of stupefaction into which Stelfox’s intelligence had thrown him. Crossing the room with quick steps, he picked out from a pile of canes and weapons of various kinds which stood in one corner a heavy, loaded stick.
“We must lose no time,” said he. “Have you any ideas as to which direction he will have taken?”
“No, sir. All I’m sure of is that he can’t have got far. You see, sir, he can’t meet anyone without their finding out that something’s wrong with him, even if he should chance upon someone that doesn’t know where he belongs to. No, sir; what I’m afraid of is, lest he should happen upon Miss Abercarne. After that day, and seeing what he did, he’d frighten her so dreadfully, sir.”
“He mustn’t meet her—he mustn’t meet her on any account!” said John Bradfield with excitement, and he brought the end of his heavy stick down with force upon the ground.
“I hope you don’t mean to brain the poor chap?” exclaimed Mr. Graham-Shute apprehensively.
“No. But unluckily there’s a possibility of his braining the first person he meets. Do you know, Stelfox, whether he took anything which he could use as a weapon away with him?”
Stelfox hesitated a moment, and then answered:
“Well, sir, one leg of the mahogany table that stands in his sitting-room has been forced off. It looks as if he’d been preparing for this job, for it’s clear he’s been hacking away at the leg on the quiet for some time, so that at last he was able to wrench it off.”
While he spoke, Mr. Bradfield was buttoning himself in his ulster. Stelfox went on:
“I can’t quite make out now how he gave me the slip. The door was closed as usual. He must have picked the lock. He’s as cunning as they make ’em, and nobody would have guessed at breakfast time that there was anything up.”
Mr. Bradfield, who was walking towards the front door, stopped suddenly.
“Where is Miss Christina now?” he asked.
Mr. Graham-Shute answered.
“She’s up in the Chinese-room, sewing for this tomfoolery my wife’s getting up.”
“Mr. Donald has just gone up there with some things he’s been buying for her in the town,” added Stelfox.
“That’s all right,” said Mr. Graham-Shute. “He’ll be hanging about there for the rest of the afternoon, so that if this poor fellow should get in there, she’ll have someone to stand by her.”
“Stelfox,” said Mr. Bradfield as he left the house, “let somebody watch the door of the Chinese-room.”
But this order was given too late. Chris had, indeed, been sewing upstairs, as Mr. Graham-Shute said, and Donald had returned from the town with his tapes and buttons. But several things had happened since then.
In the first place, Donald had wanted to make his return an opportunity of making love to Chris.
“Why, six pieces of tape! three reels of number forty! one packet of mixed needles! two boxes of pins! Mr. Shute, you’re a genius! You haven’t made a mistake!”
“I should have done if it had been for anybody but you,” said Donald sentimentally. “But every word you say is engraved upon my heart. And don’t call me Mr. Shute. Call me Donald.”
“I’ll call you anything you like if you won’t tread upon the nun’s veiling, and if you leave off snipping the tape with my scissors,” said Chris prosaically.
“How awfully sharp you are with a fellow. Aren’t you nicer than that to anybody, Miss Christina?”
“Not when they interfere with my work.”
“But you’re always like this to me.”
“Always! I have known you two days.”
“And how long must you know me before you leave off snubbing me?”
“As long as you continue to behave as if I were a very silly girl, and you a very silly—boy, Mr. Shute.”
“You think that’s very cutting, I suppose? Do you happen to know how old I am, Miss Abercarne?”
“Oh, perhaps you’re only extremely juvenile for your years; at any rate I should have thought you were too old to worry a girl at your mother’s instigation.”
Donald started, and grew crimson.
“I—I—I don’t understand you, Miss Abercarne,” he stammered, seating himself on the table, and stabbing the precious nun’s veiling through and through with a bodkin which he had taken from a work-basket.
“Don’t you?” said Chris calmly, as she set his teeth on edge by tearing a piece of calico. “Then, as I am quite sure you’re not dull-witted, I can only suppose that you must think I am. For the past two days,” she went on, as she tore off another strip of calico, “you have followed me about everywhere; and when you have not done it of your own accord, I have seen Mrs. Graham-Shute remind you by a nod or a look that you had to do so. Ah! ha! You didn’t think my eyes were so good as that, did you?”
Donald was redder than before, and furious with his mother, Chris, and himself. But then the boy peeped out in him, and he snatched away the calico just as she was about to tear it again.
“Don’t do that, for goodness’ sake!” said he, wincing. “Call me names, if you like, make me out a cad if you like, but don’t set my teeth on edge!”
“I’m not going to call you names, or to make you out anything,” said Chris, blushing and laughing a little, and looking very pretty in the excitement of the skirmish. “But, of course, I can’t help having my own opinion of your behaviour.”
“I don’t care what your opinion is, you’ve no right to say such things!” cried Donald in a loud and dictatorial tone.
“I haven’t said anything but that you followed me about because your mother told you to,” said Chris, looking up with a daring face.
“It isn’t true! It isn’t true, it’s a—a—well, it isn’t true!” roared Donald.
“Yes, it is true, and I know why she does it, too!” she added in a defiant tone, but with burning cheeks. “And I can tell you that both you and she are wasting your time; for I’m not going to do the thing you’re both so much afraid of. And if I were going to do it,” she added, with spirit, “nothing you and she could do would prevent me.”
For a moment Donald was struck dumb. He was not only astonished, but he was filled with admiration. He liked the girl’s “pluck,” and she looked “jolly pretty.”
“And w-w-what’s that?” he stammered almost meekly.
“Why,” said Chris, becoming redder than ever, and looking at him half-shyly, half-defiantly, “why, marry Mr. Bradfield!”
By this time Donald had given up all thoughts of contradicting her. Where was the use? So he sat down again upon the table, and stared at her stupidly.
“Oh!” said he at last in a feeble manner, and in a tone of reflection—“oh! so that’s what you think, is it?”
“Yes, and what I think further is that you’re both very silly.”
“By Jove!” said Donald softly, “I think we are!”
“And as you agree with me so entirely upon this point,” said Chris, as she skipped over the piles of material which lay on the floor, and made for the door, “you won’t be surprised when I tell you that if you dare to come and worry me any more, I shall tell Mr. Bradfield. And perhaps you know whether you would like that!”
With which tremendous menace, Chris gave him a little curt bow, and ran quickly out of the room, leaving him in a state of stupefaction.
Half-way along the corridor Chris slackened her steps. It began to dawn upon her that she had just managed to put herself in a very uncomfortable position. She had, she thought, probably succeeded in freeing herself from the attentions of the boisterous hobbledehoy who had been pursuing her. But if, as she judged most likely, he should confide to his mother the details of the interview just passed, Mrs. Graham-Shute’s indignation would be so great, that she would certainly vent some of it on the girl who had “insulted” her son. With this unpleasant idea in her mind, Chris went down to the drawing-room very soberly.
The moment she entered she was seized upon by Mrs. Graham-Shute.
“Oh, Miss Abercarne,” began that lady in an injured tone, “you’ve forgotten all about the music. Don’t you know that the performance is to take place to-morrow, and that it doesn’t do to leave everything to the last?”
Chris was not in the humour to be bullied by Mrs. Graham-Shute for that lady’s own neglect.
“I hadn’t forgotten the music, Mrs. Shute,” she said. “But I hadn’t been asked to arrange it, and I should not have taken the matter upon myself, even if, with the costumes to make, I had had time.”
“Oh, well, somebody must see to it. I’m getting this affair up for other people’s pleasure, and I expect to be helped.”
“If you will settle upon the music you want played, I am quite ready to play it,” said Chris rather shortly.
It was certainly not for Miss Abercarne’s pleasure that Mrs. Graham-Shute was getting up the entertainment, but she spoke as if she had no other object in view.
At that moment the door opened, and Donald came in. He did not see Chris, who was standing in the embrasure formed by the big bay-window which looked out to the west. Donald slouched up to his mother with his usual heavy tread.
“Mother,” he said, “I want to speak to you.”
Mrs. Graham-Shute turned towards him, and Chris slipped quickly out of the corner she was in, passed round the two, and crossed the room to the door.
“Wait a minute, Miss Abercarne,” said Mrs. Graham-Shute peremptorily, catching sight of Chris when the girl’s hand was on the door.
But Chris took no notice. She had been running about and tiring herself out for that lady for two days, and now at last she rebelled. She saw Donald start and turn round, and that was another reason why she felt that she must make her escape. She had had enough of Graham-Shutes for the present; and as they could find her as long as she was in the house, she pulled out a cloak from a box-ottoman in the hall, took from a peg in the outer hall a lantern which always hung there, lit the candle in it, and escaped out of the house. She would go and see how the work of erecting the stage in the barn was getting on.
She had to cross the park by a path which led alongside a plantation to the group of new buildings, erected by Mr. Bradfield, which consisted of the stables and some farm-buildings, one of which was the great barn. The key had been left in the lock, so she got in without difficulty. It was quite dark inside, and apparently deserted. Raising her lantern high above her head, Chris saw that the men had finished the work of erecting the stage, and that they had all left the building.
While she still stood by the door, she heard Donald’s voice whistling to one of the dogs. She did not want him to find her here, and to inflict upon her another “scene.” So she shut the great door very softly, first taking the key from the outside, and replacing it on the inside. And when she had shut it, she turned the key softly in the lock.
“Now,” she thought to herself, “if he should think of trying the door, he will find it locked, think the place empty, and pass on.”
With a sigh of relief to think that she had gained half an hour’s peace, Chris crossed the wide barn floor, and examined the stage. It had been very well put up, and was firm to the tread. For she tried it herself, putting her lantern down on one corner of the stage while she did so.
She tried a step or two, but stopped suddenly, hearing something behind her which was not the creaking of a board. She looked round quickly, but saw nothing except the bare brick walls, and the forms still piled in one corner. So she turned round again to face the imaginary audience.
To her horror, she found that she had a real one.
A man, evidently from his stealthy walk a man with some purpose which was not honest, was sliding rapidly along the walls towards the door. Chris dropped her skirt, and held her breath. Was he going out, afraid of being discovered? In this case she made up her mind to pretend not to see him.
To her horror he gained the door by a last step, which was like the bound of a wild beast, and took the key out of the lock.
Chris sprang from the stage to the floor, uncertain what to do until she knew who this was, and what his purpose might be. But with a sudden notion that this was a thief, who meant to assault and rob her, she turned towards the lantern, thinking she could elude him better in the dark.
But the man divined her attention, and sprang across the floor with leaps and bounds, uttering discordant and frantic cries.
For one moment Chris was paralysed with horror, and could not move; and of that one moment the man took advantage to snatch up the lantern, and turn its full light upon her.
Then she stood transfixed, looking at his great wild eyes in the obscurity, and clasping her hands.
For it was the lunatic from the east wing!