“I will think of the child! I will think of the child!” she murmured. And, crouching down, she hugged it to her with a sensation of relief, almost of happiness. “I thank God I came! I thank God I am here to protect it!”
And resolutely averting her eyes from the low roof and oven-like walls, that, when she dwelt too long on them, seemed, like the famous dungeon of Poe, to contract about her and choke her, she devoted herself to the child; and as she grew scared by its prolonged torpor, she strove to rouse it. At first her efforts were vain. But she persisted in them. For the vision which she had had in the cell at Kendal—of the child holding out pleading hands to her—rose to her memory. She was certain that at that moment the child had been crying for aid. And surely not for nothing, not without purpose, had the cry come to her ears who now by so strange a fate was brought to the boy’s side.
At intervals she felt almost happy in this assurance; as she pressed the child to her, and watched by the dim, yellow light its slow recovery from the drug. Her present danger, her present straits, her position in this underground place, which would have sent some mad, were forgotten. And the past and the future filled her thoughts; and Anthony Clyne. Phrases of condemnation and contempt which he had used to her recurred, as she nursed his child; and she rejoiced to think that he must unsay them! The bruises which he had inflicted still discoloured her wrist, and moved strange feelings in her, when her eyes fell upon them. But he would repent of his violence soon! Very soon, very soon, and how completely! The thought was sweet to her!
She was in peril, and a week before she had been free as air. But then she had been without any prospect of reinstatement, any hope of regaining the world’s respect, any chance of wiping out the consequences of her mad and foolish act. Now, if she lived, and escaped from this strait, he at least must thank her, he at least must respect her. And she was sure, yes, she dared to tell herself, blushing, that if he respected her, he would know how to make the world also respect her.
But then again she trembled. For there was a darker side. She was in the power of these wretches; and the worst—the thought paled her cheek—might happen! She held the child more closely to her, and rocked it to and fro in earnest prayer. The worst! Yes, the worst might happen. But then again she fell back on the reflection that he was searching for them, and if any could find them he would. He was searching for them, she was sure, as strenuously, and perhaps with more vengeful purpose than when he had sought the child alone! By this time, doubtless, she was missed, and he had raised the country, flung wide the alarm, set a score moving, fired the dalesmen from Bowness to Ambleside. Yes, for certain they were searching for her. And they must know, careful as she had been to hide her trail, that she could not have travelled far; and the scope of the search, therefore, would be narrow, and the scrutiny close. They could hardly fail, she thought, to visit the farm in the hollow; its sequestered and lonely position must invite inquiry. And if they entered, a single glance at the disordered kitchen would inform the searchers that something was amiss.
So far Henrietta’s thoughts, as she clasped the boy to her and strove to warm him to life against her own body, ran in a current chequered but more or less hopeful. But again the supposition would force itself upon her—the men were desperate, and the woman was moved by a strange hatred of her. What if they fled, and left no sign? What if they escaped, and left no word of her? The thought was torture! She could not endure it. She put the child down, and rising to her knees, she covered her eyes with her hands. To be buried here underground! To die of hunger and thirst in this bricked vault, as far from hope and help, from the voices and eyes of men and the blessed light of the sun, as if they had laid her alive in her coffin!
Oh, it was horrible! She could not bear it; she could not bear to think of it. She sprang, forgetting herself, to her feet, and the blow which the roof dealt her, though her thick hair saved her from injury, intensified the feeling. She was buried! Yes, she was buried alive! The roof seemed to be sinking upon her. These brick walls so cunningly arched, and narrowing a t either end, as the ends of a coffin narrow, were the walls of her tomb! Those faint lines of mortar which seclusion from the elements had preserved in their freshness, presently she would attack them with her nails in the frenzy of her despair. She glared about her. The weight, the mass of the hill above, seemed to press upon her. The air seemed to fail her. Was there no way, no way of escape from this living tomb—this grave under the tons and tons and tons of rock and earth?
And then the child—perhaps she had put him from her roughly, and the movement had roused him—whimpered. And she shook herself free—thank God—free from the hideous dream that had obsessed her. She remembered that the men were not yet fled, nor was she abandoned. She was leaping, thank Heaven, far above the facts. In a passion of relief she knelt beside the child, and rained kisses on him, and swore to him, as he panted with terror in her arms, that he need not fear, that he was safe now, and she was beside him to take care of him! And that all would be well if he would not cry. All would be well. For she bethought herself that the child must not know how things stood. Fear and suffering he might know if the worst came; but not the fear, not the mental torture which she had known for a few moments, and which in so short a time had driven her almost beside herself.
The boy’s faculties were still benumbed by the hardships which he had undergone; perhaps a little by the narcotic he had taken. And though he had seen Henrietta at least a dozen times in the old life, he could not remember her. Nevertheless she contrived to satisfy him that she was a friend, that she meant him well, that she would protect him. And little by little, in spite of the surroundings which drew the child’s eyes again and again in terror to the dimly-lit vaulting, on which the shadow of the girl’s figure bulked large, his alarm subsided. His heart beat less painfully, and his eyes lost in a degree the strained and pitiful look which had become habitual. But his little limbs still started if the light flickered, or the oil sputtered; and it was long before, partly by gentle suasion, partly by caresses, she succeeded in inducing the child—nauseated as he was by the drug—to take food. That done, though she still believed him to be in a critical state, and dreadfully weak, she was better satisfied. And soon, soothed by her firm embrace and confident words, her charge fell into a troubled sleep.