CHAPTER XXX.
From time to time, when they got into the open country, Freda was alarmed by the sight of another cart some distance behind them on the road. For long tracts the hedges, the winds in the road, the hills and vales, hid it from her sight, but again and again it would reappear, filling her with misgivings.
“Barnabas,” she said at last, when the farmer asked what it was she was turning round to look at so constantly, “there’s another cart following us; I am sure of it. Who do you think it is?”
“Fred Barlow, moast loike,” answered he, with a glance back. “He’s generally home early, an’ he lives only two moile aweay from wheer Ah do.”
And there was silence again.
But Freda was not satisfied; however long it might be before it reappeared, that cart was sure to come in sight again, and as for Fred Barlow, he would surely come in a little vehicle the size of the one she was driving in, not in a big, lumbering conveyance like that! Before Barnabas turned up the lane that led to the farm, though, the big cart had been lost sight of for so long that the girl’s fears had calmed a little, and by the time they drew up at the front door, she had forgotten everything but Dick, and the object of her journey.
Barnabas got down and pulled the bell, but no one answered. He pulled it a second time, and came back to speak to Freda.
“Toimes are changed here,” he said, with a sagacious nod. “Ye woan’t find a merry welcome and troops of servants to weait on ye this toime.”
As nobody had yet come to the door, he gave it a kick with his hob-nailed boots, and called out lustily:
“Here, here! Is noabody cooming to open this door? Here’s a leady weating, an’ aht of respect to t’ sex, Ah’ll burst t’ door in if soombody doan’t open it!”
This frank-spoken summons succeeded. The door opened at once and Dick looked out. But was it Dick, this haggard, cavernous-eyed creature with his clothes hanging loosely upon him? He looked like a hunted criminal, and Freda felt a great shock as she noted the change.
“What do you want?” asked he shortly.
“Ask t’ leady,” said Barnabas in the same tone.
Dick started when he caught sight of the girl.
“You! Miss Mulgrave!”
She held out her hands.
“Help me down, please,” she said in a husky voice, “I want to speak to you. Let me come inside.”
“Are you coming too?” said Dick, not very graciously, to Ugthorpe, as he helped Freda down.
“No, no, don’t you come, Barnabas,” said the girl quickly, turning to the farmer. “I want to speak to Dick by himself. You wait for me.”
Barnabas, laughed with some constraint.
“Ah doan’t knaw what Ah’m to seay to that.”
“Why, do as she wishes. She shan’t come to any harm, Ugthorpe,” said Dick with a break in his voice.
But the farmer still hesitated.
“Ah’m not afreaid of you, Mr. Richard. But—who have ye gotten abaht t’ pleace?”
Dick flushed as he answered quickly: “Nobody who can or will do any harm to Miss Mulgrave.”
This answer, while it reassured Barnabas, alarmed Freda. For it seemed to confirm her fears that it was her father who was in hiding about the farm.
“Yes, Barnabas, let me go,” she urged, touching his arm in entreaty.
“Well, Ah give ye ten minutes, an’ ye must leave t’ door open, and when toime ’s oop, Ah shall fetch ye.”
“Thank you, thank you, good, dear Barnabas,” said she.
But he began instantly to scoff.
“Oh, yes, we’re angels while we let ye have your own weay, an’ devils if we cross ye. Ye’re not t’ first woman Ah’ve hed to deal with, missie,” he grumbled.
But Freda did not heed him. She was walking very demurely down the unlighted passage with Dick, saying never a word now she had got her own way, and keeping close to the wall as if afraid of her companion. He felt bound to try to make conversation.
“I’m afraid you’ll find a great change in the place since my aunt left, Miss Mulgrave. This is only a bachelor’s den now, and you know a man with no ladies to look after him is not famous for his orderliness, and in fact—I’m hardly settled here yet you know.”
They were passing through the passage, at right angles with the entrance-hall, which ran alongside the servants’ quarters. No sounds of merry talk and laughter now, no glimpses of a roaring fire through the half-open kitchen door. Nothing but cold and damp, and a smell as of rooms long shut-up to which the fresh air never came. Freda shivered, but it was not with cold; it was with horror of the gloom and loneliness of the place. Poor Dick! They passed into the huge ante-room; it was entirely unlighted, and Dick turned to offer her his hand.
“You will hurt yourself, against the—walls. There is nothing else for you to hurt yourself against,” he added rather bitterly.
She gave him her hand; it was trembling.
“You are not frightened, are you? If you knew what it is to me to touch a kind hand again, and—and yours——”
He stopped short, putting such a strong constraint upon himself that Freda felt he was trembling from head to foot.
“Don’t, don’t,” she whispered.
Dick made haste to laugh, as if at a joke. But it was a poor attempt at merriment and woke hoarse echoes in the old rafters. They had reached the door of the banqueting-hall.
“You must be prepared for an awfully great change here,” he said, with assumed cheerfulness. “My aunt wanted the furniture of this room; of course she didn’t think I should use such a big place all by myself. But I’ve got used to it, so I stick to it in its bareness. You won’t mind my showing you in here; the fact is the—the—drawing-room’s locked up.”
“No-o,” quavered Freda, who knew that all the furniture of the farm had been seized and sold either before or immediately after Mrs. Heritage’s departure, “not at all. In fact I would rather.”
“I don’t know about that,” rejoined Dick dubiously as he opened the door.
All this had not prepared the girl for the desolate sight which met her eyes. The great hall, which had looked so handsome with its rugs, its old oak furniture and tapestry hangings, was barer than a prison ward. A vast expanse of floor, once brightly polished, now scratched and dirty; rough, bare walls with nothing to hide their nakedness, formed a picture so dreary that she uttered a low cry. In the huge fireplace a small wood fire burned low; an old retriever, crippled with age and rheumatism, wagged his tail feebly without rising at his master’s approach, and gave a feeble growl for the stranger. A kitchen chair, with some of the rails missing; a small deal table; an arrangement of boxes against the wall covered by a man’s ulster; these formed all the furniture of the huge room. Freda stopped short when she had advanced a few steps; and burst into tears. Dick affected to laugh boisterously.
“I didn’t reckon on the effect these rough diggings would have on a lady,” he said, in a tone of forced liveliness which did not deceive his guest. “Why, this is a palace to some of the places I’ve stayed in when in the Highlands. A man doesn’t want many luxuries when he’s alone. But I suppose it shocks you.”
“Ye-es, it does,” sobbed Freda.
“Come and take a chair. I’m sorry there isn’t much choice; I’ve ordered a couple of those wicker ones with cushions, but they haven’t come yet. I’ll sit upon the sofa.”
But Freda knew that the pile of boxes on which he seated himself, carelessly nursing his knee, was his bed. She had regained command of herself, however, so she took his only chair, and looked steadily into the fire. Dick sprang up again immediately, and affected to look about him with much eagerness.
“What an idiot I am!” he exclaimed. “I believe I’ve forgotten to bring in any candles; I know I was out of them last night.”
Freda said nothing, but sat very still. The tears were silently rolling down her cheeks again. She waited while he rummaged in the table drawer, and opened the door by the fireplace, as if in search. Then quick as lightning, while his back was turned, she whipped out from under her long cloak a large neat brown paper parcel, unrolled it, and took out two candles, which she proceeded to fix on the table by the primitive schoolgirl fashion of melting the ends at the fire. Then she took out of the parcel a box of matches, and lit the candles. In the meantime Dick had returned from his fruitless errand, and was watching her helplessly from the other side of the table. When she had finished, Freda dared not look at him, but tried furtively to draw towards her the tell-tale parcel, out of which several small packages had rolled. But at last she made a bold dash, and with a shaking voice said:
“I know better than you think what a man is, left to himself. I know—you’ve forgotten—to get in—any supper.”
By the time she reached the last words, her voice had dropped to a guttural whisper. But she was so much excited that it was quite easy for her to laugh long and naturally, as she opened, one after another, a series of little packages, and spread them out before his eyes.
“There’s butter and bacon, and a piece of cold beef, and tea, and sugar, and even bread!” she ended in a shrill scream, with her breath coming and going in quick sobs.
For, glancing up, she had caught on Dick’s face, which looked more haggard than ever in the candle light, the terrible look of hunger, real, famishing hunger. She looked down again quickly at her provisions.
“Aha!” she cried in a quavering voice, “I know how to take care of myself! I wasn’t going to trust myself to the tender mercies of a man!”
Dick said nothing, but she talked on with scarcely a pause.
“You’ve got some plates, I suppose, and one knife and fork at least. Go and fetch them. Make haste, make haste!”
And she rattled her crutch upon the floor. The old dog was hungry too; he came sniffing and barking about her, as if he knew that she had brought help to him and his master. Dick had some plates and knives and forks, and a broken teapot. These Freda arranged upon the table with nimble, graceful fingers. For the moment, moved by the unguessed extremities to which her host was reduced, she had forgotten that the chief object of her visit was one of warning.
She was recalled to the truth in a startling manner. A handful of earth and stones was flung up at one of the lofty windows by some one in the court-yard. Freda sprang forward with a cry, her worst fears confirmed; as Dick turned hastily from the table, she clung to his arm and tried to speak. But at first words refused to come.