“I say—hallo—why wench, what the devil’s come over ye?” halloed the voice of the old man from the foot of the stairs. “That’s the trick of you rogues all—ye run away to draw us after; well, it won’t do—another time. I say, good-night, ye wild bird.”
“Thank you, sir—good-night, sir—good-night, sir,” repeated the voice of Alice, higher and higher up the stairs, and he heard her door shut.
He stood with a flushed face, and a sardonic grin for a while, looking up the stairs, with his big bony hand on the banister, and wondering how young he was; and he laughed and muttered pleasantly, and resolved it should all be settled between them next evening; and so again he looked at his watch, and found that she had not gone, after all, earlier than usual, and went back to his fire, and rang the bell, and got a second “night-cap,” as he called his flagon of punch.
Tom remarked how straight the Squire stood that night, with his back to the fire, eyeing him as he entered from the corners of his eyes, with a grin, and a wicked wag of his head.
“A dull dog, Tom. Who’s a-goin’ to hang ye? D—n ye, look brighter, or I’ll stir ye up with the poker. Never shake your head, man; ye may brew yourself a tankard o’ this, and ye’ll find you’re younger than ye think for, and some of the wenches will be throwing a sheep’s eye at you—who knows?”
Tom did not quite know what to make of this fierce lighting up of gaiety and benevolence. An inquisitive glance he fixed stealthily on his master, and thanked him dubiously—for he was habitually afraid of him; and as he walked away through the passages, he sometimes thought the letter that came that afternoon might have told of the death of old Lady Drayton, or some other relief of the estate; and sometimes his suspicions were nearer to the truth, for in drowsy houses like Wyvern, where events are few, all theses of conversation are valuable and speculation is active, and you may be sure that what was talked of in the town was no mystery in the servants’ hall, though more gossiped over than believed.
Men who are kings in very small dominions are whimsical, as well as imperious—eccentricity is the companion of seclusion—and the Squire had a jealous custom, in his house, which was among the oddities of his despotism; it was simply this: the staircase up which Alice Maybell flew, that night, to old Dulcibella and her room, is that which ascends the northern wing of the house. A strong door in the short passage leading to it from the hall shuts it off from the rest of the building on that level.
For this young lady, then, while she was still a child, Squire Fairfield had easily made an Oriental seclusion in his household, by locking, with his own hand, that door every night, and securing more permanently the doors which, on other levels, afforded access to the same wing.
He had a slight opinion of the other sex, and an evil one of his own, and would have no Romeo and Juliet tragedies. As he locked this door after Miss Alice Maybell’s “good-night,” he would sometimes wag his head shrewdly and wink to himself in the lonely oak hall, as he dropped the key into his deep coat pocket—“safe bind, safe find,” “better sure than sorry,” and other wise saws seconding the precaution.
So this night he recollected the key, as usual, which in the early morning, when he drank his glass of beer at his room-door, he handed to old Mrs. Durdin, who turned it in the lock, and restored access for the day.