Mary Marston, George MacDonald [book club reads txt] 📗

excluded. She turned away, overwhelmed with a momentary despair. What was she to do? There stood Joseph! She ran back to him, and told him they had shut her out.

"It makes me miserable," she went on, "to think of the poor man calling me, and me nowhere to answer. The worst of it is, I seem the only person he has any faith in, and what I have been telling him about the father of us all, whose love never changes, will seem only the idler tale, when he finds I am gone, and nowhere to be found-as they're sure to tell him. There's no saying what lies they mayn't tell him about my going! Rather than go, I will sit on the door-step all night, just to be able to tell him in the morning that I never went home."

"Why have they done it, do you think? asked Joseph.

"I dare hardly allow myself to conjecture," answered Mary. "None of them like me but Jemima-not even Mrs. Redmain now, I am afraid; for you see I never got any of the good done her I wanted, and, till something of that was done, she could not know how I felt toward her. I shouldn't a bit wonder if they fancy I have a design on his money-as if anybody fit to call herself a woman would condescend to such a thing! But when a woman would marry for money, she may well think as badly of another woman."

"This is a serious affair," said Joseph. "To have a dying man believe you false to him would be dreadful! We must find some way in. Let us go to the kitchen-door."

"If Jemima happened to be near, then, perhaps!" rejoined Mary; "but if they want to keep me out, you may be sure Mewks has taken care of one door as well as another. He knows I'm not so easy to keep out."

"If you did get in," said Joseph, speaking in a whisper as they went, "would you feel quite safe after this?"

"I have no fear. I dare say they would lock me up somewhere if they could, before I got to Mr. Redmain's room: once in, they would not dare touch me."

"I shall not go out of hearing so long as you are in that house," said Joseph, with decision. "Not until I have you out again do I leave the premises. If anything should make you feel uncomfortable, you cry out, miss, and I'll make a noise at the door that everybody at Thornwick over there shall hear me."

"It is a large house, Joseph: one might call in many a part of it, and never be heard out of doors. I don't think you could hear me from Mr. Redmain's room," said Mary, with a little laugh, for she was amused as well as pleased at the protection Joseph would give her; "it is up two flights, and he chose it himself for the sake of being quiet when he was ill."

As she spoke, they reached the door they sought-the most likely of all to be still open: it was fast and dark as if it had not been unbolted for years. One or two more entrances they tried, but with no better success.

"Come this way," whispered Joseph. "I know a place where we shall at least be out of their sight, and where we can plan at our leisure."

He led her to the back entrance to the old hall. Alas! even that was closed.

"This is disappointing," he said; "for, if we were only in there, I think something might be done."

"I believe I know a way," said Mary, and led him to a place near, used for a wood-shed.

At the top of a great heap of sticks and fagots was an opening in the wall, that had once been a window, or perhaps a door.

"That, I know, is the wall of the tower," she said; "and there can be no difficulty in getting through there. Once in, it will be easy to reach the hall-that is, if the door of the tower is not locked."

In an instant Joseph was at the top of the heap, and through the opening, hanging on, and feeling with his feet. He found footing at no great distance, and presently Mary was beside him. They descended softly, and found the door into the hall wide open.

"Can you tell me what window is that," whispered Joseph, "just above the top of the wall?"

"I can not," answered Mary. "I never could go about this house as I did about Mr. Redmain's; my lady always looked so fierce if she saw me trying to understand the place. But why do you ask?"

"You see the flickering of a fire? Could it be Mr. Redmain's room?"

"I can not tell. I do not think it. That has no window in this direction, so far as I know. But I could not be certain."

"Think how the stairs turn as you go up, and how the passages go to the room. Think in what direction you look every corner you turn. Then you will know better whether or not it might be."

Mary was silent, and thought. In her mind she followed every turn she had to take from the moment she entered the house till she got to the door of Mr. Redmain's room, and then thought how the windows lay when she entered it. Her conclusion was that one side of the room must be against the hall, but she could remember no window in it.

"But," she added, "I never was in that room when I was here before, and, the twice I have now been in it, I was too much occupied to take much notice of things about me. Two windows, I know, look down into a quiet little corner of the courtyard, where there is an old pump covered with ivy. I remember no other."

"Is there any way of getting on to the top of that wall from this tower?" asked Joseph.

"Certainly there is. People often walk round the top of those walls. They are more than thick enough for that."

"Are you able to do it?"

"Yes, quite. I have been round them more than once. But I don't like the idea of looking in at a window."

"No more do I, miss; but you must remember, if it is his room, it will only be your eyes going where the whole of you has a right to be; and, if it should not be that room, they have driven you to it: such a necessity will justify it."

"You must be right," answered Mary, and, turning, led the way up the stair of the tower, and through a gap in the wall out upon the top of the great walls.

It was a sultry night. A storm was brooding between heaven and earth. The moon was not yet up, and it was so dark that they had to feel their way along the wall, glad of the protection of a fence of thick ivy on the outer side. Looking down into the court on the one hand, and across the hall to the lawn on the other, they saw no living thing in the light from various windows, and there was little danger of being discovered. In the gable was only the one window for which they were making. Mary went first, as better knowing the path, also as having the better right to look in. Through the window, as she went, she could see the flicker, but not the fire. All at once came a great blaze. It lasted but a moment-long enough, however, to let them see plainly into a small closet, the door of which was partly open.

"That is the room, I do believe," whispered Mary. "There is a closet, but I never was in it."

"If only the window be not bolted!" returned Joseph.

The same instant Mary heard the voice of Mr. Redmain call in a tone of annoyance-"Mary! Mary Marston! I want you. Who is that in the room?-Damn you! who are you?"

"Let me pass you," said Joseph, and, making her hold to the ivy, here spread on to the gable, he got between Mary and the window. The blaze was gone, and the fire was at its old flicker. The window was not bolted. He lifted the sash. A moment and he was in. The next, Mary was beside him.

Something, known to her only as an impulse, induced Mary to go softly to the door of the closet, and peep into the room. She saw Hesper, as she thought, standing-sidewise to the closet-by a chest of drawers invisible from the bed. A candle stood on the farther side of her. She held in one hand the tumbler from which, repeatedly that evening, Mary had given the patient his medicine: into this she was pouring, with an appearance of care, something from a small dark bottle.

With a sudden suspicion of foul play, Mary glided swiftly into the room, and on to where she stood. It was Sepia! She started with a smothered shriek, turned white, and almost dropped the bottle; then, seeing who it was, recovered herself. But such a look as she cast on Mary! such a fire of hate as throbbed out of those great black eyes! Mary thought for a moment she would dart at her. But she turned away, and walked swiftly to the door. Joseph, however, peeping in behind Mary, had caught a glimpse of the bottle and tumbler, also of Sepia's face. Seeing her now retiring with the bottle in her hand, he sprang after her, and, thanks to the fact that she had locked the door, was in time to snatch it from her. She turned like a wild beast, and a terrible oath came hissing as from a feline throat. When, however, she saw, not Mary, but the unknown figure of a powerful man, she turned again to the door and fled. Joseph shut and locked it, and went back to the closet. Mary drew near the bed.

"Where have you been all this time?" asked the patient, querulously; "and who was that went out of the room just now? What's all the hurry about?"

Anxious he should be neither frightened nor annoyed, Mary replied to the first part of his question only.

"I had to go and tell a friend, who was waiting for me, that I shouldn't be home to-night. But here I am now, and I will not leave you again."

"How did the door come to be locked? And who was that went out of the room?"

While he was thus questioning, Joseph crept softly out of the window; and all the rest of the night he lay on the top of the wall under it.

"It was Miss Yolland," answered Mary.

"What business had she in my room?"

"She shall not enter it again while I am here."

"Don't let Mewks in either," he rejoined. "I heard the door unlock and lock again: what did it mean?"

"Wait till to-morrow. Perhaps we shall find out then."

He was silent a little.

"I must get out of this house, Mary," he sighed at length.

"When the doctor comes, we shall see," said Mary.

"What! is the doctor coming? I am glad of that. Who sent for him?" "I don't know; I only heard he was coming."

"But your lawyer, Mary-what's his name?-will be