CHAPTER IV. CLAIRE’S APOLOGY.
The effect of that cry upon Bram Elshaw was to set him tingling in every nerve.
The lawn which ran the length of the farmhouse was wide, and sloped down to a straggling hedge just inside the low stone wall which surrounded the garden and the orchard. Up and down this lawn Bram walked with hurried footsteps, uncertain what to do. For although he recognized Claire’s voice, the cry she had uttered seemed to him to indicate surprise and horror rather than pain, so that he did not feel justified in entering the house by the way she had done until he felt more sure that his assistance was wanted, or that his intrusion would be welcome.
In a very few moments, however, he heard her cry—“Don’t, don’t; oh, don’t! You frighten me!”
Bram, who was by this time close to the door, knocked at it loudly.
Waiting a few moments, on the alert for any fresh sounds, and hearing nothing, he then made his way round to the back of the house, leaping over the rough stone wall which divided the garden from the farmyard, and tried the handle of the back door.
This also was fastened on the inside.
But at the very moment that Bram lifted the latch and gave the door a rough shake he heard a sound like the clashing of steel upon stone, a scuffle, a suppressed cry, and upon that, without further hesitation, Bram put his sinewy knee against the old door, and at the second attempt burst the bolt off.
There was no light inside the house except that which came from the fire in an open range on the right; but by this Bram saw that he was in an enormous stone-paved kitchen, with open rafters above, a relic of the time when the farmer was not one of the gentlefolk, but dined with his family and his laborers at a huge deal table under the pendant hams and bunches of dried herbs which in the old days used to dangle from the rough-hewn beams.
Bram, however, noticed nothing but that a door on the opposite side of the kitchen was swinging back as if some one had just passed through, and he sprang across the stone flags and threw it open.
There was a little oil lamp on a bracket against the wall in the wide hall in which he found himself. Standing with his back to the solid oak panels of the front door, brandishing a naked cavalry sword of old-fashioned pattern, stood the airy Theodore Biron in dressing-gown and slippers, with his hair in disorder, his face very much flushed, and his little fair moustache twisted up into a fierce-looking point at each end.
On the lowest step of a wide oak staircase, which took up about twice the space it ought to have done in proportion to the size of the hall, stood little Claire, pale, trembling with fright, trying to keep her alarm out of her voice, as she coaxed her father to put down the sword and go to bed.
“Drunk! Mad drunk!” thought Bram as he took in the situation at a glance.
At sight of the intruder, whom she did not in the least recognize, Claire stopped short in the midst of her entreaties.
“What are you doing here? Who are you?” asked she, turning upon him fiercely.
The sudden appearance of the stranger, instead of further infuriating Mr. Biron, as might have been feared, struck him for an instant into decorum and quiescence. Lowering the point of the weapon he had been brandishing, he seemed for a moment to wait with curiosity for the answer to his daughter’s question.
When, however, Bram answered, in a respectful and shame-faced manner, that he had heard her call out and feared she might be in need of help, Theodore’s energy returned with full force, and he made a wild pass or two in the direction of the young man, with a recommendation to him to be prepared.
Claire’s terrors returned with full force.
“Oh, father, don’t, don’t! You’ll hurt him!” she cried piteously.
But the entreaty only served to whet Theodore’s appetite for blood.
“Hurt him! I mean to! I mean to have his life!” shouted he, while his light eyes seemed to be starting from his head.
And, indeed, it seemed as if he would proceed to carry out this threat, when Bram, to the terror of Claire and the evident astonishment of her father, rushed upon Theodore, and, cleverly avoiding the thrust which the latter made at him, seized the hilt of the sword, and wrested it from his grasp.
It was a bold act, and one which needed some address. Mr Biron was for the moment sobered by his amazement.
“Give me back my sword, you impudent rascal!” cried he, making as he spoke a vain attempt to regain possession of the weapon.
But Bram, who was a good deal stronger than he looked, kept him off easily with his right hand, while he retained a tight hold on the sword with his left.
“You shall have it back to-morrow reeght enough,” said Bram good-humoredly. “But maybe it’ll be safer outside t’house till ye feel more yerself like. Miss Claire yonder knaws it’s safe wi’ me.”
“Oh, yes; oh, yes,” panted Claire eagerly, though in truth she had not the least idea who this mysterious knight-errant was. “Let him have it, father; it’s perfectly safe with him.”
But this action of his daughter’s in siding with the enemy filled Mr Biron with disgust. With great dignity, supporting himself against the wall as he spoke, and gesticulating emphatically with his right hand, while with his left he fumbled about for his gold pince-nez, he said in solemn tones—
“I give this well-meaning but m-m-muddle-headed young man credit for the best intentions in the world. But same time I demand that he should give up my p-p-property, and that he should take himself off m-m-my premises without furth’ delay.”
“Certainly, sir. Good-evening,” said Bram.
And without waiting to hear any more of Mr Biron’s protests, or heeding his cries of “Stop thief!” Bram ran out as fast as he could by the way he had come, leaving the outer door, which he had damaged on his forcible entry, to slam behind him.
Once outside the farmyard, however, he found himself in a difficulty, being suddenly stopped by a farm laborer, in whom his rapid exit from the house had not unnaturally aroused suspicions, which were not allayed by the sight of the drawn sword in his hand.
“Eh, mon, who art ta? And where art agoin’?”
Bram pointed to the house.
“There’s a mon in yonder has gotten t’ jumps,” explained he simply, “and he was wa-aving this abaht’s head. So Ah took it away from ’un.”
The other man grinned, and nodded.
“T’ mester’s took that way sometimes,” said he. “But this sword’s none o’ tha property, anyway.”
Bram looked back at the house. Nobody had followed him out; even the damaged door had been left gaping open.
“Ah want a word wi’ t’ young lady,” said he. “She knaws me. I work for Mr. Cornthwaite down at t’ works in t’ town yonder.”
“Oh, ay; Ah’ve heard of ’un. He’s gotten t’ coin, and,” with a significant gesture in the direction of the farmhouse, “we haven’t.”
“You work on t’ farm here?” asked Bram.
The man answered in a tone and with a look which implied that affairs on the farm were in anything but a flourishing condition—
“Ay, Ah work on t’ farm.”
And, apparently satisfied of the honesty of Bram’s intentions, or else careless of the safety of his master’s property, the laborer nodded good-night, and walked up the hill towards a straggling row of cottages which bordered the higher side of the road near the summit.
Bram got back into the farmyard, and waited for the appearance at the broken door of some occupant of the house to whom he could make his excuses for the damage he had done. He had a shrewd suspicion who that occupant would be. Since all the noise and commotion he and Theodore Biron had made had not brought a single servant upon the scene, it was natural to infer that Mr. Biron and his daughter had the house to themselves.
And this idea filled Bram with wonder and compassion. What a life for a young girl, who had seemed to rough Bram the epitome of all womanly beauty and grace and charm, was this which accident had revealed to him. A life full of humiliations, of terrors, of anxieties which would have broken the heart and the spirit of many an older woman. Instead of being a spoilt young beauty, with every wish forestalled, every caprice gratified, his goddess was only a poor little girl who lived in an atmosphere of petty cares, petty worries, under the shadow of a great trouble, her father’s vice of drink.
And as he thought about the girl in this new aspect his new-born infatuation seemed to die away, the glamour and the glow faded, and he thought of her only as a poor little nestling which, deprived of its natural right of warmth and love and tenderness, lives a starved life, but bears its privations with a brave look.
And as he leaned against the yellow-washed wall he heard a slight noise, and started up.
Miss Biron, candlestick in hand, was examining the injuries done to her back door.
Bram opened his mouth to speak, but he stammered and uttered something unintelligible, taken aback as he was by the vast difference between the fancy picture he had been drawing of the young lady and the reality with which he was confronted.
For instead of the wan, white face, the streaming eyes, the anxious and weary look he had expected to see, he found himself face to face with a cheery little creature, brisk in movement, bright of eyes, who looked up with a start when he appeared before her, and said rather sharply—
“This is your doing, I suppose? And instead of being scolded for the mischief you have done you expect to be thanked and perhaps rewarded, no doubt?”
At first Bram could scarcely believe his ears.
“Ah’m sorry for t’ damage Ah’ve done, miss,” he said hurriedly. “And that’s what Ah’ve waited for to tell yer, nowt but that. But it’s not so bad as it looks. It’s nobbut t’ bolt sprung off and a scratch to the paint outside. If you can let me have a look into your tool-chest, Ah’ll set it reght at once. And for t’ paint, Ah’ll come up for that to-morrow neght.”
Miss Biron smiled graciously. The humble Bram had his sense of humor tickled by the airs she was giving herself now, as if she had forgotten altogether her helpless fright of only an hour before, and the relief with which she had hailed his disarming of her father.
“Well, that’s only fair, isn’t it?” said she with a bright smile, as she instantly acted upon his advice by disappearing into the house like a flash of lightning.
Bram heard the rattling of tools, and as it went on some time without apparent result, he stepped inside the door to see if he could be of any assistance.
Claire had thrown open the door of a cupboard to the left of the wide hearth, and was standing on a Windsor chair turning over the contents of a couple of biscuit tins on the top shelf. Bram, slow step by slow step, came nearer and nearer, fascinated by every rapid movement of this, the first feminine creature who had ever aroused his interest. How small her feet were! Bram looked at them, and then turned away his head, as if he had been guilty of something sacrilegious. And the movement of her arm as she turned over the odds and ends in the boxes, the bend of her dark head as she looked down, filled him afresh with that strange new sense of wonder and delight with which she had inspired him on his first sight of her at the works. Against the light of the candle, which she had placed on the shelf, he saw her profile in a new aspect, in which it looked prettier, more childlike than ever.
“Better give me t’ box, miss,” suggested Bram presently.
Miss Biron started, not knowing that he was so near.
“Very well,” said she. “You can look, but I am afraid you won’t find any proper tools here at all.”
She was right. But Bram was clever with his hands as well as with his head, and he could “make things do.” So that in a very few minutes he was at work upon the door, while Miss Biron held the light for him, and watched his nimble movements with interest.
And while she watched him it occurred to her, now that she felt quite sure he was no mere idler who had burst his way into the house from curiosity, that she had been by no means as grateful for his timely entrance as he had had a right to expect. And the candle began to shake in her hands as she glanced at him rather shyly, and wondered how, without casting blame upon her father, she could make amends to this methodical, quiet, and rather mysterious young Orson for the part he had taken in the whole affair.
“I’m really very much obliged to you,” she said at last, with a very great change in her manner from the rather haughty airs she had previously assumed. “I——”
She hesitated, and stopped. Bram had glanced quickly up at her, and then his eyes had flashed rapidly back to his work again.
“I seem to know your face,” said she with a manner in which sudden shyness struggled with a sense of the dignity it was necessary for her to maintain in these novel circumstances. “Where have I met you before? And what is your name?” she added quickly, as a fresh suspicion rushed into her mind.
“My name is Elshaw, miss. Bram Elshaw,” he answered, as he sat back on his heels and hunted again in the biscuit tin. “And I’ve seen you. I saw you t’ other day, last Tuesday, at Mr. Cornthwaite’s works. It was me showed you round, miss.”
“Oh!”
The bright little face of the girl was clouded with bewilderment.
“And then again Ah saw you to-neght up to Mr. Cornthwaite’s house, up at t’ Park. And he told me for to see you home, miss.”
“Oh!”
This time the exclamation was one of confusion, annoyance, almost of horror.
“I remember! He said—he said—he would send some one to see me home. But—er—er—I was in such a hurry—that—that I forgot. And I ran off by myself. And—and so you followed; you must have followed me!”
And Claire’s pretty face grew red as fire.
The truth was she had been angry with Mr. Cornthwaite for the manner of his reception, for the dry remarks he had made about her father, and for his manifest and most ungracious unwillingness to allow Christian to see her home. And she had made up her mind that no “respectable young man” of Mr. Cornthwaite’s choosing should accompany her if Chris might not. And so, dashing off through the park in the dusk by a short cut, she had thought to escape the ignominy which Mr. Cornthwaite had designed for her.
Bram, with a long, rusty nail between his teeth, grew redder than she. In an instant he understood what he had not understood before, that the young lady had taken the offer of his escort as a humiliation. She had wanted to go back with Christian, and Mr. Cornthwaite had wished to put her off with one of his workmen! Bram felt that her indignation was just, although he was scarcely stoical enough not to feel a pang.
“You see, miss,” he said apologetically, taking the nail out of his mouth, “Ah was bound to come this weay, and so Ah couldn’t help but follow you. And—and when Ah heard you call aht—why Ah couldn’t help but get in. Ah’m reght sorry if Ah seemed to be taking a liberty, miss.”
Again Claire was struck as she had been that day at the works by the innate superiority of the man to his social position, of his tone to his accent.
“It was very lucky for me—I am very glad, very grateful,” said she hurriedly, in evident distress, which was most touching to her hearer. “I don’t know what I should have done—I—I must explain to you. You must not think my father would have done me any harm,” she went on earnestly, with a great fear at her heart that Bram would report these occurrences to his employer, and furnish him with another excuse for slighting her father. “He gets like that sometimes, especially in the hot weather,” she went on quickly, and with so much intensity that it was difficult to doubt her faith in the story. “He was in the army once, and he had a sword-cut on the head when he was out in India. And it makes him excitable, very excitable. But it never lasts long. Now he is fast asleep, and to-morrow morning he will be quite himself, quite himself again. You won’t say anything about it to Mr. Cornthwaite, will you?” she wound up, with a sidelong look of entreaty, as Bram, having finished his task, rose to his feet and picked up the coat he had thrown off before setting to work.
“No, miss.”
There was something in his tone, in his look, as he said just those two words which inspired Claire with absolute confidence.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you very much.”
And Bram understood that her gratitude covered the whole ground, and took in his forcible entrance, the time he had spent in mending the door, and his final promise.
“And Ah’ll look in to-morrow neght, miss,” said he as he turned in the doorway and noticed how sleepy her brown eyes were beginning to look, “and give a coat of paint to’t.”
“Oh, you need not. It’s very good of you.”
He touched his cap, and turned to go; but as he was turning, Claire, blushing very much, and conscious of this conflict between conventionality and her sense of what she owed to this dignified young workman, who could not be rewarded with a “tip,” thrust out her little hand.
Then Bram’s behavior was for the moment rather embarrassing. The privilege of touching her fingers, of holding the hand which had stirred in him so many strange reflections for a moment in his own, as if they had been friends, equals, was one which he could not accept with perfect equanimity. She saw that he started, and, blushing more than ever, she seemed in doubt as to whether she should withdraw her hand. But, seeing her hesitation, Bram mastered himself, took the hand she offered, wrung it in a strong grip, and walked quickly away towards the gate.
He felt as if he was in Heaven.