‘Was that your stepfather? They will be anxious about ye. I would say’—Charlie made a little pause to secure her attention—‘I would say you were passing near our place, never thinking ye had come so far, and that my mother came out to ye, seeing ye so tired, and bid me to bring you hame in the cairt—that’s what I would say.’
‘Say!’ cried Janet, fully roused up. ‘Do you mean that I should tell mother that? But it would be a lie.’
‘’Deed, and so it would,’ said the young man with a shamefaced laugh. ‘But to make an excuse for yourself is aye pardonable, do ye no think? And then it would save Mr. Tom. Be you sure now my father knows he’s given his word against it, he shall never be asked into our house more.’
‘Oh,’ said Janet, ‘I could not say anything I had made up. When the moment comes and mother looks at me, I can only say—what has happened.’
‘But nothing has happened,’ said Charlie. ‘Except,’ he added, ‘one thing, that I’ll maybe tell you about some day. But that has happened to me, and not to you. Miss Janet, you’ll not forget me clean altogether?’
‘Oh, how should I forget you,’ cried Janet with a sob, ‘when I know I shall get into such dreadful trouble as I never was in before in all my life! Oh, mother!’
The girl had thrown off her wraps and tumbled down from the dog-cart, almost before it had stopped, into the middle of the group on the steps, which consisted of Lady Car, wrapped in a great shawl, her sister, and half the servants in the house.
‘Janet! Oh, where have you been? And where is Tom? What has happened?—tell me,’ cried Lady Car, taking her daughter by the arms and gazing into her eyes with an agonised question. The arrival of the cart at such headlong speed seemed to give a sort of certainty to all the fears that had been taking shape among the watchers.
‘Oh, Mozer!’ Janet cried, her childish outcry coming back in the extremity of her apprehension and consciousness. But Charlie Blackmore, with his wits about him, called out from the cart, ‘There’s nothing wrong. Mr. Tom he’s just behind. They’ve ridden owre far and wearied themselves. Mr. Tom he’s just behind. But my mare’s fresh—she’ll no’ stand. Let go her head, dash ye! Do ye hear? She’ll no stand.’
The little incident of the mare whirling round, the gravel flying under her feet, the groom recoiling backwards, turning an unintentional summersault upon the grass, made a pause in which everybody took breath.