The flashes followed each other at intervals of about a minute. I had witnessed three or four when suddenly I gave a start, and an exclamation broke involuntarily from my lips. The last flash had revealed to me the figures of two men in the act of climbing over the garden-wall. One of the men was a stranger to me; but in the other, instantaneous as was the revelation, I recognised the somewhat peculiar face and figure of a man named Dethel, whom my brother had employed temporarily during the last week or two in the garden, our regular man being laid up at the time with rheumatism. There was something in the looks of the man in question which had set me against him from the first; but if we were all to be judged by our looks alone, what would become of us! For aught I knew to the contrary, Dethel might be an honest, hard-working fellow, with a wife and children dependent on him; but for all that, on the days he was working for us I carefully refrained from going into the garden.
And now, here was this man, and another with him, effecting a surreptitious entry of the premises at one o’clock in the morning! Such a proceeding could have but one end in view. Two questions at once put themselves to me. Firstly, were these men aware that my brother was from home for the night, and that only three helpless women and a girl were left in the house? Secondly, had they by some means become cognisant of the fact that a few hours previously Mr Shillito had paid my brother a considerable sum of money, which must necessarily still be somewhere on the premises? In my mind there was little doubt that both these facts were fully known to the men. My brother’s movements were as open as the day, and Dethel had doubtless ascertained from Reuben the groom that his master would be from home on this particular night; while as for Mr Shillito, everybody knew how he talked in his loud-voiced way about his most private affairs when he had taken more to drink than was good for him. At the bar of more than one tavern that evening, every one who might chance to be within hearing would not fail to be informed that Mr Shillito had just paid John Waldron his half-year’s rent.
These thoughts flashed through my mind almost as quickly as that flash which revealed so much. Breathlessly I waited for the next flash. It came, shattering the darkness for an instant, and then it, too, was swallowed up. The men were no longer visible. Between the two flashes they had had time to drop on the inner side of the wall, where the thick clumps of evergreens which clothed that part of the grounds would effectually screen them from view. At that very moment they were doubtless making their way stealthily towards the house. What was to be done? Never had I realised so fully as at that moment how helpless a creature a woman is. Drawing my shawl more closely round me and putting on a pair of list slippers which I wore about the house in cold weather, I crept noiselessly out of the room. At the top of the stairs I halted and listened; but all was silence the most profound. The corridor out of which the bedroom opened was lighted at the opposite end by a high narrow window which looked into the garden. To this window I now made my way, and there, with one ear pressed to the cold glass, I stood and listened. Presently I heard the faint sound of footsteps, and then the subdued voices of two people talking to each other. Directly under the place where I was standing was the back drawing-room, which opened on the garden by means of a French-window; and although this window was secured at night by shutters, I had an idea that the security in question was more fancied than real, and was of a kind that would be laughed to scorn by any burglar who was acquainted with his business. If the men had made up their minds to break into the house—and with what other object could they be there?—the probability was that they would make the attempt by way of the French-window. Even while this thought was passing through my mind, the voices of the men sank to a whisper, and a low peculiar grating sound made itself heard. Evidently they had already begun to force the fastenings of the window. I crept back to my room, feeling utterly dazed and helpless.
‘Is that you, Barbara? Where have you been?’ asked my sister.
Going into her room, I sat down on the side of the bed and told her everything in as few words as possible. She was of a somewhat timid and nervous disposition, and my news visibly affected her. She sat up in bed, trembling and clinging to my arm.
‘Perhaps,’ she whispered, ‘if we lock our bedroom doors and keep very quiet, they will go away without coming near us.’
‘Why, you goose, it’s not us they have come after, but Mr Shillito’s ninety pounds,’ I answered.
‘And there’s poor mamma’s silver tea-service down-stairs; I hope they won’t find that,’ said Bessie.
I hoped so too; but there was no judging how much Dethel had contrived to ascertain respecting us and our affairs. I went to the corridor window again and listened. The noise made by the men was now plainly distinguishable. It seemed as if they were trying to file or cut their way through some obstruction. After listening for a few moments, I went back to my room and began almost mechanically to put on a few articles of clothing, asking myself again and again as I did so whether it was not possible to do something—though what that something ought to be I knew no more than the man in the moon. The nearest house was a quarter of a mile away; and even if I could have stolen out unnoticed by way of the front-door, before I could have reached the farm and brought back help, the burglars would have effected their purpose and decamped. Our pecuniary means at that time were very straitened. For some time back John had been paying off some old family debts; and the loss of the ninety pounds—which, as a matter of course, he would feel bound to make good—would be a great blow to him. If I could only have got at the money, and have hidden it where the burglars would not be likely to find it, I felt that I should have accomplished something. But the bag was locked up in John’s strong mahogany desk, and was as utterly beyond my reach as if it had been in the coffers of the Bank of England, while yet it could hardly have been placed more conveniently ready to the hands of the thieves. To them the strong mahogany desk would seem a trifling obstacle indeed.
All this time, metaphorically speaking, I was wringing my hands, knowing full well how precious were the fast-fleeting moments, but only feeling my helplessness the more, the more I strove to discern some loophole of escape. Oh, the wretchedness of such a feeling! I hope never to experience it again in the same degree as I experienced it that night.