Volume Three—Chapter Seventeen.
Besieged.
Dally had not reached the Rectory, and Horace North had not sat long thinking over the girl’s words in a way which puzzled him, as it brought a curious feeling of rest and satisfaction to his brain, before a carriage came sharply along the King’s Hampton road, and passed Moredock’s cottage and Mrs Berens’ pretty villa-like home. North was seated, with his head resting upon his hand, thinking.
Miss Mary would be so pleased, the girl had said—pleased that he was better.
It seemed strange to him, but the words set him picturing Mary Salis in the old days at the Rectory; then her accident, and how he had tended her. Then he thought of the sweet, pale, patient face, as she passed through that long time of bodily suffering, to be followed by the lasting period of what must have been terrible mental anguish as she found herself to be a hopeless, helpless invalid—changed, as it were by one sad blow, from a young and active girl to a dependent cripple.
“Poor, gentle, patient Mary!” he said softly; and then, like a flash, his mind turned to the sister—her sick couch, her delirious declaration of her love, and his weak, blind folly in not grasping the fact that the tenderness she lavished upon him was meant for another.
“No, you can’t. Master’s better, and he’s engaged, and can’t see patients.”
North started up on his seat, rigid, and with a wild look in his eyes, as he heard these loudly uttered words, and then sprang to the door.
“Now, my dear Mrs Milt,” said a soft, unctuous voice, which he knew only too well, “pray do not be excited. How can you speak like that?”
“I speak what I think and feel, sir,” retorted the old lady sharply. “What do these people want with master?”
“To ask him to go and attend upon a patient who is in a dying state. There: pray come away. Really, Mrs Milt, you must not interfere like this.”
“I tell you, sir, master don’t want to see patients, and he can’t come out; so you must send them away.”
“Really, Mrs Milt,” said Cousin Thompson, “this is insufferable. My good woman, you forget yourself.”
Every word reached North as he stood close to the door and realised that there was one woman ready to fight in his defence.
North stood there, with his hands clenched and his brow rugged, glaring angrily, for he well knew what this meant. The voices were heard retiring, and the sound of the dining-room door closing, and muffling them suddenly, told him as plainly as if he had seen that the housekeeper had followed Cousin Thompson into that room, where an angry altercation seemed to be in progress.
“Hah!” ejaculated the miserable man; “canting and unscrupulous to the end. He is keeping her in parley while his people do their work.”
He laughed bitterly, for at that moment the door was tried softly, and then there was a gentle tapping on the panel.
“May my money prove a curse to him, and the whole place constantly remind him of his treachery,” he muttered, as the soft tapping was repeated, and a low voice, which he did not recognise, said:
“Dr North—Dr North! Can I speak to you a minute?”
He made no answer, but drew back to the table.
“Will they dare to break in?” he said to himself, as his face wore a look of bitter scorn and contempt.
Just then Mrs Milt’s voice could be heard raised loudly in protest; but it was in vain. Cousin Thompson, under the pretext of holding a parley, had entrapped her in the dining-room, and then interposed his person whenever she attempted to leave by door or window.
The tapping at the door ceased, and there was a sound of whispering; whilst a minute after a stoutly-built, rather hard-faced man, with a determined look, suddenly appeared at the French window looking on the garden, and tried the handle.
It was fast on the inside.
He passed on and went round to the surgery door, which he tried, too; but North had fastened this when he let Dally out, and the man came back, looked in and tapped gently on the pane to take North’s attention. Then seeing that he did not stir from where he stood at the table, the man smiled and beckoned to him.
This he repeated again and again, but North did not stir. Then his lips moved, and he involuntarily repeated Hamlet’s words:
“I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a hernshaw.”
The man nodded and smiled again, and passed away.
There was another low murmuring outside the door, and a fresh tapping, as a persuasive voice said:
“Dr North, will you be kind enough to open the door, and come into the dining-room? Mrs Milt, the housekeeper, would like to speak to you.”
“What a child—what a weak lunatic they must think me!” muttered North; but he did not move, and, as he fully expected, the last speaker, as he supposed, went round to the window and tapped softly.
The fresh comer might have been twin brother of the first, so similar was his expression, so exactly a repetition were his acts.
They were of as much avail, and he returned to the hall, when a few words were exchanged in a low tone of voice, followed by a sharp tapping at the dining-room door.
This was opened, and Mrs Milt’s voice rose loudly:
“Stop me if you dare, any of you! and I’ll have the law of you.”
This was followed by a sharp, rustling noise, and the dull thud made by the banging of the baize door.
Then there was the sound of the gravel as some one walked over it hurriedly, and the clicking of the swing-gate before it caught.
“Give the word, sir, and it’s done,” said a deep voice.
“Quick, then!” said Cousin Thompson sharply. “Quick, before that cursed woman returns with help.”