Mad Barbara

by Warwick Deeping

But setting the romance and the tenderness thereof aside for a moment, John Gore found himself face to face with some very sinister and savage questions. Plodding back over the grass toward the beech-thicket where he had left his horse, he began to scan the past as he walked, beating up memories with the keenness of a lawyer sifting evidence. Why had they mewed the girl up in this ruin of a place? Why had they lied to him about her madness? What had they to fear from her that they had made such a secret of the thing? Barbara herself had seemed haunted by some hidden anguish, some mysterious dread that had made her shudder at the simplest question. He recalled all that he had heard concerning her—the mystery of her father’s death, her moodiness and silence, the fears my lord had expressed as to her state of mind. He retold, piece by piece, the tale his father had told him on the night of his return from Yorkshire in September. Why had they gotten her into their power, made some pretence of madness, and shut her up with such keepers, and at the mercy of a ruffian’s fist? The inevitable answer was that Barbara had discovered some secret that my Lord Gore and her mother were fiercely compelled to conceal. It had not been madness on her part, but perhaps too much knowledge, that had led them to seize such sinister methods. As for the secret itself, the core and pith of the whole mystery! He could only recall the tale his father had told him, and knit his brows over it like a man meeting the sleet of a storm.

Now John Gore was a man of action, and as such laid his plans that night. He was going to take Barbara out of Thorn, for all the plots and intrigues and miserable shadows of shame the whole world might boast. There was the fellow Grylls to be dealt with, his father’s creature, and though his heart smote him at the thought of it, he was grimly determined to lose no chance. Whatever authority the man might have, he might at least be robbed of information. Captain Grylls would probably spend the night at Thorn, and might be dealt with when he sallied out in the morning.

A night watch in the woods opened for John Gore; he and his horse would have to make the best of such quarters as they had, the shelter of the beeches and the litter of leaves and bracken. John Gore swung himself into the fork of a tree, and, wrapping his cloak about him, sat looking toward Thorn, his heart full of the night’s adventures. The darker thoughts drifted aside for a season, and he thought only of the woman whose womanhood meant so much to him. He found himself wondering at the change in her, for never before had she shown her true self to him with its flood of pathos, simplicity, and passion. A few moments at a window, a touch of the hands, and they were sharing life and its impulses together. He thought of the long, cold nights in that tower room, the loneliness, the forebodings, the burden of past sorrow. It was easy to understand how the less lovable pride in her had been broken, and how with tears her womanhood had come by its true strength. The very sound of her voice had seemed richer to him; the change in her was a change that no true man would ever quarrel with.

Though mists rose and a frail moon came up to make the dark woods seem more raw and cold, John Gore kept watch all night in the fork of the beech-tree, thinking of Barbara and of the strange things he had discovered. He saw the dawn steal slowly into the east, and with the first gray light thereof the flutter of something white at the upper window of the tower. But with the day and the sound of the stirring of birds, John Gore came down out of the beech-tree, for there was work before him, and he had made his plans. There were his pistols to be cleaned and primed, his horse to be given a canter for both their sakes, and a crop at the grass in the forest ride. He still had some victuals left him, and John Gore made a meal under the tree where he had spent the night, keeping an eye on Thorn for a glimpse of Captain Grylls. Nor had the gossamer and the dew shone for long in the sunlight before he saw a horseman ride out from the gate of Thorn, and push on slowly toward the forest track.

Captain Grylls was jogging along peacefully that morning, thinking of such things as a man thinks of when he feels fat and warm, the money he is making, the clever things he may have done, or the woman he happens to fancy for the moment, when he heard the sound of a horse’s hoofs sucking wet grass, and the creak and jingle of harness. The track had broadened into an open place with a number of great oak-trees spreading their branches over it, so that they made a golden dome with the turf green and sleek beneath. A man on horseback appeared suddenly amid the oak-trees, riding at a canter under the sweeping boughs, with his hat over his eyes as though to save his face from the hazel twigs of the track. The stranger bore down straight on Captain Grylls, though that worthy shouted lustily and tried to get his horse out of the path. And even before he could curse the clumsy folly of the thing, his horse went down like a rammed wall, throwing him heavily, and crushing one leg badly under his flank.

Captain Grylls was stunned, and lay there on his back with his mouth open, a great gobbet of wet mud on his forehead. His nag picked himself up, shook himself till the harness rattled, and then stood quietly staring at the stranger who had blundered into him like a cavalry horse at the charge. John Gore was out of the saddle and bending over Captain Grylls. The fellow was far from dead, though conveniently senseless. John Gore opened his coat, searched his pockets, and found in a brown leather pocket-book a little package about the size of a man’s palm, wrapped in a piece of paper that looked like the torn-out fly-leaf of a book. The packet was tied up with worsted and roughly sealed.

John Gore took the thing, slipping the leather pocket-book back again into its place. Then he turned his attention to Captain Grylls’s horse, taking out that gentleman’s pistols, scattering the powder, and rubbing wet mud into the pans. He searched the holsters and the saddle-bags, but found nothing but a pipe and a paper of tobacco, some food, a change of undergear, and a bottle of wine. He had put the things back again when Captain Grylls came to his senses and sat up.

With the first clearing of his wits he laid a hand to his bruised ankle, and began to swear like a buccaneer at the man who had ridden into him so clumsily.

“Teeth and hair of the Almighty! you blind sot of a jackass, isn’t there enough road for you to ride to blazes without blundering into better men than yourself? What the devil do you mean by it, you Sussex clod, you bumpkin, you lousy yeoman? Give us a hand, can’t you? Wet grass ain’t anything of a cushion, especially when a man has no change of small-clothes with him.”

He glanced at John Gore, but did not seem to recognize him, and, getting upon his feet, limped to and fro awhile, cursing. Then he began slapping his pockets with his hands to make sure that his purse and pocket-book were there, looking at John Gore the while out of the corners of his eyes.