The Master of Greylands: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"Since when have you seen them?" pursued Ethel, feeling surprised and rather scandalized.

"Ah, well, I can't tell that. Since last autumn, though. No harm may be meant, Miss Ethel; I don't say it is; and none may come of it: but young girls in Jane Hallet's position ought to take better care of themselves than to give rise to talk."

Ethel continued her way to the cliff in some annoyance. While Mr. Harry Castlemaine made a pretence of addressing herself, it was not agreeable to hear that he was flirting with the village girls. It's true Ethel did not intend to listen to his suit: she absolutely rejected it; but that made little difference. Neither in itself was this walking with Jane Hallet the right thing. What if he made Ana fond of him? many a possibility was more unlikely than that. As to any "harm" arising, as Mrs. Bent had just phrased it, Ethel did not fear that--did not, in fact, cast a thought to it. Jane Hallet was far superior to the general run of girls at Greylands. She had been well educated by the Grey Ladies, morally and else, having gone to school to them daily for years; she was modest and reticent in manner; and Ethel would as soon believe a breath of scandal could tarnish herself as Jane. Her brother, George Hallet, who was drowned, had been made a sort of companion of by Harry Castlemaine during the last year or two of his life, as Greylands well remembered: and Ethel came to the conclusion that the intimacy Mrs. Bent talked of must be a sort of remnant of that friendship, meaning nothing: and so she dismissed it from her mind. Mrs. Bent, as Ethel knew, was rather given to find fault with her neighbours' doings.

Now it happened that as Ethel was ascending the cliff, Jane Hallet, within the pretty cottage near the top of it, was being taken to task by her aunt for the same fault that Mrs. Bent had spoken of--the staying abroad after nightfall. Miss Hallet had latterly found much occasion to speak on this score; but Jane was invariably ready with some plausible excuse; so that Miss Hallet, naturally unsuspicious, and trusting Jane as she would have trusted herself, never made much by the argument.

After taking the cambric handkerchief to Greylands' Rest the previous evening, Jane had gone home, swallowed her tea hastily, put off the best things that her aunt grumbled at her for having put on and then sat down to work. Some article was wanted in the house; and at dusk Jane ran down in her dark cloak to get it. From which expedition she did not get back until half-past nine was turned: and she seemed to have come up like one running for a wager. Miss Hallet was then ill with an attack of spasms, and Jane remained unreproved. This morning when the housework was done, and they had begun their sewing, Miss Hallet had leisure to recur to it. Jane sat by the window, busy at one of the handkerchiefs. The sun shone on her bright flaxen hair; the light print dress she wore was neat and nice--as Jane's dresses always were.

"How long does it take to get from here to Pike's shop and back again, Jane?"

"From here to Pike's shop and back again, aunt?--I could do it in a short ten minutes," said unsuspicious Jane, fancying her aunt might be wanting to send her there. "It would take you longer, of course."

"How did it happen then last night that it took you two hours and ten minutes?" demanded Miss Hallet. "You left here soon after half past seven, and you did not get back till close upon ten."

The soft colour in Jane's face grew bright on a sudden. She held her work to the window, as though some difficulty had occurred in the cambric.

"After buying the sugar, I went into the parlour to say good evening to Susan Pike, aunt. And then there came that dreadful outcry about Nancy Gleeson's poor burnt child."