One key after another she tried, and then came the turn of a key that hung alone on a slender silver chain. It fitted, it turned; hastily she drew back the bolts and the door swung open. A flood of moonlight poured through a screen of ivy and dazzled her eyes. Her prison was unlocked! The wind had dropped and the weather changed, the snow had ceased, everything seemed in her favour.
"My luck has turned," she laughed as she flew back up the stairs to prepare for her flight. All fatigue and bewilderment was over. She was as joyous and self-possessed as a child planning a new game.
"They must not blame Mistress Joyce for mine escape," she meditated; "nor must they set to hunting for secret passages and spy out my treasure chamber. If I unbar the shutter and leave the window open, they may amuse themselves by inventing how I found wings! Now! That was deftly done, that shutter has made never a sound! 'Tis well my pockets are new and strong. They must carry the principal of the papers. Now I must tie the money bags in my apron, and the pearls shall travel secure round my neck and tucked into my bodice."
With dancing eyes she made her preparations. Then she blew out the candles and pulled the closet door to behind her with a snap. Then she stood a moment and hesitated, and, with a hasty movement, she swept her grandfather's letter from the floor and thrust it into her bodice, and ran down the stairs as if she wished to forget what she had done.
She pushed the little door wide open and looked out. A thicket of leafless thorns helped the tangled ivy to entirely hide the secret entrance, but beyond the bushes lay a wide field of rough grass glistening white with hoar frost in the moonlight, and shut in by miniature cliffs and hills.
"Why, 'tis Tom Tit Tot's gravel pit!" she cried in delight. "How well to bring the stairs out in such a deserted corner! And, just beyond that bank, is the high road to Lynn. But this frost is unlucky; my pursuers will dog me as a hart by my tracks, and I shall betray them my treasure-chamber. What policy can I use to baffle them? Richard said I was fit for plots and stratagems! I have it!"
She slipped her cloak from her shoulders, and flung it from her over the grass as far as she could. Then, locking the door, she put the keys into her pocket, and sprang lightly from the threshold on to her cloak, leaving no sign of a footprint close to the door. The ivy screen fell back over the entrance and Audrey laughed with triumph as she picked up the cloak and shook the frost from it.
"I protest this last stratagem of mine hath crowned the record!" she laughed to herself. "No one will dream there is a door yonder, or that this trampled patch is the mark of my cloak. It looks as if some tinker's ass had made his bed here! And my steps are but those of his master's boy fetching him away! Now I can start forth with no fear of being tracked, and there goes nine on the church clock. I'll warrant the best part of the good folk of Hunstanton are abed by this, so I shall have the road to myself. But whither go I? Straight to Lynn? 'Tis a long trudge. I doubt my feet will carry me so far this night. Jack Catlin is sure to be abed and snoring by the time I reach Inglethorpe. What hinders my slipping into the stable and stealing my own horse? Richard is sure to be off long ago. He could easily drop from a window, or even walk out of the front door without Jack Constable knowing anything of it. Doubtless I shall find him at Master Marshman's, whistling for a fair wind! Had those fools kept me clapped up another twelve hours, I might have lost my travelling-companion."
The triumph of her escape and her recovered riches had raised her elastic spirits to their wildest pitch. Forgotten were her regrets, forgotten her shame-faced resentment, forgotten her vague fears of a cold and cruel world. She had, alone and unhelped, escaped from prison and recovered her fortune; she was once more queen of her own destiny. Gay, self-confident, hopeful, she danced along the hard, sandy path through the heather. The tide was out, no sound broke the silence but her own light footsteps, and soon she found she was singing aloud. She was free, she was rich, she was on her way to a land of freedom, all was delightful and rosy. Poor Richard Harrison! How she had misjudged him in her first rush of resentful surprise on reading her grandfather's letter!
"I must put a curb on this unruly temper of mine," she vowed. "Had any one been near to hear all I was ready to say in my rage, I might have lost my fine new brother. But all's well that ends well, and Westward Ho to-morrow!"