“That’s not all,” with a shudder. The woman leant forward and spoke low with her eyes glued to the door. “That’s not all. You don’t know, nobody knows. Nobody knows—that’s alive! But once, after I came to live here, when I complained that he was out so much and was not treating me well, he took and showed me—he took and showed me——”
“What?” Henrietta spoke as lightly as she could. “What did he show you?” For the woman had broken off, and with her eyes closed seemed to be on the point of fainting.
“Nothing—nothing,” Mrs. Tyson said, recovering herself with a sudden gasp. “And here’s the basket, miss. Meg lives down below. Shall she carry the basket to Mrs. Gilson’s? It is not fitting a young lady like you should carry it.”
“Oh, no; I will take it,” Henrietta answered, with as careless an air as she could muster.
And after a moment’s awkward hesitation, under the eyes of the dull serving-maid, she rose. She would gladly have stayed and heard more; for her pity and curiosity were alike vividly roused. But it was plain that for the present she could neither act upon the one nor assuage the other. She read a plea for silence in the eyes of the weak, frightened woman; and having said that probably Mrs. Gilson would be sending her that way again before long, she took her leave.
Wondering much. For the low-ceiled kitchen, with its shadowy chimney-corner and its low-browed windows, had another look for her now; and the stillness of the house another meaning. All might be the fancy of a nervous, brooding woman. And yet there was something. And, something or nothing, there were unhappiness and fear and cruelty in this quiet work. As she climbed the track that led again to the lip of the basin, and to sunshine and brisk air and freedom, she had less pity for herself, she thought less of herself. She might have lain at the mercy of a careless, faithless husband, who played on her fears and mocked her appeals. She, when in her early unbroken days she complained, might have been taken and scared by—heaven knew what!
She was still thinking with indignation of the woman’s plight when she gained the road. A hundred paces brought her to Hinkson’s. And there, standing under the firs at the corner of the house, and looking over her shoulder as if she had turned, in the act of entering, to see who passed, was the dark girl; the same whose insolent smile had annoyed her on the morning of her arrival, before she knew what was in store for her.
Their eyes met. Again Henrietta’s face, to her intense vexation, flamed. Then the dog sprang up and raved at her, and she passed on down the road. But she was troubled. She was vexed with herself for losing countenance, and still more angry with the girl whose mocking smile had so strange a power to wound her.
“That must be the creature we have been discussing,” she thought. “Odd that I should meet her, and still more odd that I should have seen her before! I don’t wonder that the woman fears her! But why does she look at me, of all people, after that fashion?”
She told herself that it was her fancy, and trying to forget the matter, she tripped on down the road. Presently, before her cheeks or her temper were quite cool, she saw that she was going to meet some one—a man who was slowly mounting the hill on horseback. A moment later she made out that the rider who was approaching was Mr. Hornyold, and her face grew hot again. The meeting was humiliating. She wished herself anywhere else. But at the worst she could bow coldly and pass by.