A Romance of Wastdale

by A. E. W. Mason

* * * * *

It was close upon four when Kate started off upon her long ride, and, with the knowledge that she had no time to spare, she urged her horse on at a greater speed than the roughness of the Pass made prudent. Once, indeed, at the far end, when the track takes a sudden turn at right angles to its previous course, and begins to wind down into Borrowdale, she barely escaped a heavy fall, and was only saved by the quick recovery of the beast she rode. At the bottom of the decline, however, after crossing Stockley Bridge, the path widens out on to more level ground. But it runs through pastures, and Kate's progress was impeded by a succession of gates which, since she carried no crop, compelled her to dismount to open them. But by the time she had reached Sea Toller--the long white house, lying two miles from the base of Styhead--the difficulties of her journey were ended. A firm, broad road led straight from that point over the nine miles which separated Kate from Keswick, and she roused her horse to a gallop. The animal stretched itself out in a full stride as if it realised the need for haste, making the night air ring with the clatter of its hoofs, and it seemed to Kate that barely a minute could have passed before she burst through the little village of Rosthwaite.

This quick approach to home, however, plunged a new fear into her breast.

What if her family had discovered her absence?

The question was a fever to her blood. At the time she had set off from Keswick the chance of that discovery had appeared to her the least of the dangers that she ran, so completely had she been engrossed by the necessity of regaining her letters; and, besides, she had laid her plans carefully, with perfect confidence in the fidelity of the groom. Afterwards, at Wastdale, the hurry of events had obscured her to all speculation on the matter, compelling a concentration of her faculties upon immediate issues. Now, however, she began to see a hundred threatening possibilities.

She had pleaded a headache. What more likely than that her father or her aunt should have come to her room to inquire after her before they went to bed? Her father?--she dismissed him with a moment's reflection. The good man took life and his daughter's ailments easily. But her aunt! Kate remembered with a shiver that she was a homoeopathist. She was bound to have inquired. She could not enter the room, it is true, for Kate had locked the door and held the key safe in her pocket.

She felt in her dress suddenly, half-expecting to find that she had dropped it. It was safe, however, and she experienced a relief; but the relief was only momentary.

For the window of her bedroom opened level on to the garden. A lucky advantage, she had considered it before, as affording an easy egress and return. Now it seemed to her the most vulnerable point in her plan. For if her aunt made inquiries at the door, and received no answer, she had but to step into the garden to solve her perplexities. A passing vision of an old lady in bedroom slippers padding over the grass with a box of pills failed to distract her. Kate sent her wits abroad on the wings of fear in search of excuses, but they returned to her empty-handed. Her dread was, moreover, accentuated by a retrospect upon the other dangers of that night. Her successful evasion of them only made this last risk loom the larger.

The nearer she drew towards home, the more it overshadowed her. When she crossed the marsh land at the end of the Lake, discovery had already become the probability; by the time she passed Lodore, a certainty, and when she topped Castle Hill, just above Keswick town, she strained her eyes towards the water's edge, fully expecting to see every window of their house ablaze with light.

All was in darkness, however, except for one faint glimmer, which Kate guessed came from the stables. The revulsion of feeling which she underwent acted on her like a shock, and she reined up her horse and clung to the saddle, dizzy. In the hollow a clock chimed the half-hour, lifting a silvery encouragement, and she moved on again slowly down the hill. Some twenty yards from the front of the house she dismounted, led the horse into a lane which gave on to the road, crossed a paddock at the back of the garden, and reached the stables, which stood apart from the main building. The light which she had noticed came from the harness-room; she tapped softly on the window-pane and was answered by a low growl, followed by a sharp "Quiet!"