In those days the great main lines of railway were liable to long silences in the night. At the smaller stations particularly, after the last train up and the last train down had passed without killing somebody at a level crossing, or leaving you behind because you thought it was sure to be late, and presumed upon that certainty, an almost holy calm would reign for hours, and those really ill-used things, the sleepers, seemed to have a chance at last. For after being baffled all day by intermittent rushing fiends, and unwarrantable shuntings to and fro, and droppings of sudden red-hot clinkers on their counterpanes, an inexplicable click or two--apparently due to fidgety bull's-eyes desirous of change--could scarcely be accounted a disturbance.
No station in the world was more primevally still than Grantley Thorpe, after the down three-thirty express--the train that crossed the three-fifteen that carried Gwen to London--had stopped, that the word of Bradshaw should be fulfilled; had deposited the smallest conceivable number of passengers, and wondered, perhaps, why remaindermen in the carriages always put their heads out to ask what station this was. On this particular occasion, Bradshaw scored, for the down train entered the station three minutes after the up train departed, twelve minutes behind. Then the little station turned off lights, locked up doors of offices and lids of boxes, and went to bed. All but a signalman, in a box on a pole.
There was one passenger, not a prepossessing one, who seemed morose. His only luggage was a small handbag, and that was against him. It is not an indictable offence to have no luggage, but if a referendum were taken from railway-porters, it _would_ be. However, this man was, after all, a third-class passenger, so perhaps he was excusable for carrying that bag.
"I suppose," said he, surrendering his ticket, "it's no part of your duty to tell a cove where he can get a sleep for half a night. You ain't paid for it." Whether this was churlishness, or a sort of humour, was not clear, from the tone.
Sandys, the station-master, one of the most good-humoured of mortals, preferred the latter interpretation. "It don't add to our salary, but it ought to. Very obliging we are, in these parts! How much do you look to pay?"
The man drew from his pocket, presumably, the fund he had to rely upon, and appeared to count it, with dissatisfaction. "Two and a kick!" said he. "I'll go to the tizzy, for sheets." This meant he would lay out the tizzy, or kick, provided that his bed was furnished with sheets. He added, with a growl, that he was not going to be put off with a horserug, this time. The adjective he used to qualify the previous rug showed that his experiences had been peculiar, and disagreeable.
"You might ask at Moore's, along on your left where you see yonder light. Show your money first, and offer to pay in advance. Cash first, sleep afterwards. There's someone sitting up, or they wouldn't show a light.... Here, Tommy, you're going that way. You p'int him out Moore's." Thus the station-master, who then departed along a gravel path, through a wicket-gate. It led to his private residence, which was keeping up its spirits behind a small grove of sunflowers which were not keeping up theirs. They had been once the admiration of passing trains, with a bank of greensward below them with "Grantley Thorpe" on it in flints, in very large caps. and now they were on the brink of their graves in the earth so chilly, and didn't seem resigned.
Tommy the porter did not relish his companion, evidently, as he walked on, a pace ahead, along the road that led to the village. He never said a word, and seemed justified in outstripping that slow, lurching, indescribable pace, which was not lameness, in order to stimulate it by example.
"Yarnder's Mower's," said Tommy, nodding towards a small pothouse down a blind alley. "You wo'ant find nowat to steal there, at Mower's."
"What the Hell do you mean by that?"
"What do I me'an--is that what you're asking?" Raised voice.
"Ah--what do you mean by 'steal'?"
"Just what a sa'ay! What do they me'an in London?"
"London's a large place--too large for this time o' night. You come along there one o' these days, and you'll find out what they mean." He sketched the behaviour of Londoners towards rustic visitors untruthfully--if our experience can be relied on--and in terms open to censure; ending up:--"You'll find what they'll do, fast enough! Just you show up there, one o' these fine days." He had only warped the subject thus in order to introduce the idea of a humiliating and degrading chastisement, as an insult to his hearer.
He vanishes from the story at this point, in a discharge of Parthian shafts by Tommy the young railwayman, not very energetically returned, as if he thought the contest not worth prolonging. Vanishes, that is to say, unless he was the same man who spoke with Mrs. Keziah Solmes at about eleven o'clock the next morning, in the road close by the Ranger's Cottage, close to where the grey mare started on her forty-first mile, yesterday. If this person spoke truth when he said he had come from a station much farther off than Grantley Thorpe, he was _not_ the same man. Otherwise, the witnesses agreed in their description of him.
Mrs. Solmes's testimony was that a man in rough grey suit--frieze or homespun--addressed her while she was looking out for the mail-cart, with possible letters, and asked to be directed to Ancester Towers; which is, at this point, invisible from the road. She suspected him at first of being a vagrant of some new sort--then of mere eccentricity.
For plenty of eccentrics came to get a sight of the Towers. She had surmised that his object was to do so, and had told him, that as the family were away, strangers could be admitted by orders obtainable of Kiffin and Clewby, his lordship the Earl's agents at Grantley. He then told her that he had walked over from Bridgport, where the Earl had no agent. He did not wish to go over the Towers, but to inquire for a party he was anxious to see; an old party by the name of Prichard. That was, he said, his own name, and she was a relation of his--in fact, his mother. He had not seen her for many a long year, and his coming would be a bit of a surprise. He had been away in the Colonies, and had not been able to play the part of a dutiful son, but by no choice of his own. Coming back to England, his first thought had been to seek out the old lady, "at the old address." But there he found the house had fallen down, and she was gone away temporary, only she could be heard of at Ancester Towers in Rocestershire.
Mrs. Keziah was so touched by this tale of filial affection, that she nipped in the bud a sprouting conviction that the man was no better than he--and others--should be. She interested herself at once. "You wo'ant need to ask at the Towers, master," said she. "I can tell you all they can, up there. And very like a bit more. The old dame she's gone away with my cousin, maybe an hour ago--may be more. She'll ta'ak she to her mother's at Chorlton, and if ye keep along the straight road for Grantley till ye come to sign-po'ast, sayun' 'To Dessington and Chorlton,' then another three-qua'arters of an 'oor 'll ta'ak ye there, easy."
The dutiful son looked disappointed, but did not lose his equable and not unpleasant manner. "I thought I was nigher my journey's end than that, marm," said he. "I _was_ looking forward to the old lady giving me a snack of breakfast.... But don't you mind me! I'll do all right. I got a bit of bread coming along from Gridgport.... Ah!--Bridgport I should have said." For he had begun to say Grantley.
Even if Mrs. Solmes had not been on the point of offering rest and refreshment, this disclaimer of the need of it would have suggested that she should do so. After all, was he not the son of that nice old soul her cousin Ruth Thrale had taken such a fancy to? If she came across the old lady herself, how should she look her in the face, after letting her toil-worn son add five miles to seven, on an all but empty stomach. Of course, she immediately asked him in, going on ahead of him to explain him to her husband, who looked rather narrowly at the newcomer, but could not interpose upon a slice of cold beef and a glass of ale, especially as it seemed to be unasked for, however welcome.
"'Tis a tidy step afoot from Bridgport Ra'aby, afower breakfast," said old Stephen, keeping his eye, nevertheless, on the man's face, with only a half-welcome on his own. "But come ye in, and the missus 'll cast an eye round the larder for ye. You be a stra-anger in these parts, I take it."
The beef and ale seemed very welcome, and the man was talkative. Did his hosts know Mrs. Prichard personally? Only just seen her--was that it?
She must be gone very grey by now; why--she was going that way when he saw her last, years ago. He never said how many years. He couldn't say her age to a nicety, but she must be well on towards eighty. However did she come to be at the country seat of the great Earl of Ancester?--that was what puzzled him.
Mrs. Solmes could not tell him everything, but she had a good deal to tell. The old lady she had seen was very grey certainly, but had seemed to her cousin Ruth Thrale, who had tea with her yesterday, quite in possession of her faculties, and--oh dear yes!--able to get about, but suffering from rheumatism. But then just think--nearly eighty! As for how she came to be at the Towers, all that Mrs. Solmes knew was that it was through a sort of fancy of her young ladyship, Lady Gwen Rivers, reputed one of the most beautiful young ladies in England, who had brought her from London after the accident already referred to, and who had gone away by the night-train, leaving a request to her cousin Ruth to take charge of her till her return. She could have repeated all she had heard from Mrs. Thrale, but scarcely felt authorised to do so.
One untoward incident happened. The infant Seth, summoned to show himself, stood in a corner and pouted, turned red, and became _intransigeant_; finally, when peremptorily told to go and speak to the gentleman, shrank from and glared at him; only allowed his hand to be taken under compulsion, and rushed away when released, roaring with anger or terror, or both, and wiping the touch of the stranger off his offended hand. This was entirely unlike Seth, whose defects of character, disobedience to Law and Order, and love of destruction for its own sake, were qualified by an impassioned affection for the human race, causing him to attach himself to that race, as a sort of rock-limpet, and even to supersede kisses by licks. His aversion to this man was a new departure.
He, for his part, expressed his surprise at Seth's attitude. He was noted in his part of the world for his tenderness towards young children. His circle of acquaintances suffered the little ones to come unto him contrary to what you might have thought, he being but an ugly customer to look at. But his heart was good--a rough diamond! When he had expressed his gratitude and tramped away down the road, after carefully writing down the address "Strides Cottage, Chorlton" and the names of its occupants, old Stephen and Keziah looked each at the other, as though seeking help towards a good opinion of this man, and seemed to get none.
Old Granny Marrable always found a difficulty in getting away from her granddaughter Maisie's, because her presence there was so very much appreciated. Her great-grandson also, whose charms were developing more rapidly than is ever the case in after-life, was becoming a strong attraction to her. Moreover, a very old friend of hers, Mrs. Naunton, residing a short mile away, at Dessington, had just pulled through rheumatic fever, and was getting well enough to be read to out of "Pilgrim's Progress."
This afternoon, however, Mrs. Naunton did not prove well enough to keep awake when read to, even for Mr. Greatheart to slay Giant Despair. In fact, Mrs. Marrable caught her snoring, and read the rest to herself. It was too good to lose. When the Giant was disposed of past all recrudescence, she departed for her return journey instead of waiting for her granddaughter's brother-in-law, a schoolboy with a holiday, to come and see her home. She knew he would come by the short cut, across the fields, so she took that way to intercept him, in spite of the stiles. As a rule she preferred the highroad.
The fields were very lonely, but what did that matter? How little one feels the loneliness of an old familiar pathway! No one ever _had_ been murdered in these fields, and no one ever would be. Granny Marrable walked on with confidence. Nevertheless, had she had her choice, she would have preferred the loneliness unalloyed by the presence of the man on the stile, at the end of Farmer Naunton's twelve-acre pasture, if only because she anticipated having to ask him to let her pass. For he seemed to have made up his mind to wait to be asked; if approached from behind, at any rate. She could not see his face or hands, only his outline against the cold, purple distance, with a red ball that had been the sun all day. "Might I trouble you, master?" she said.
The man turned his head just as far as was necessary for his eyes, under tension, to see the speaker; then got down, more deliberately than courteously, on his own side of the stile. "Come along, missus," he said. "Never mind legs. Yours ain't my sort. Over you go!"
Safe in the next field, Granny Marrable turned to thank him. But not before she had put three or four yards between them. Not that she anticipated violence, but from mere dislike of what she would have called sauciness in a boy, but which was, in a man of his time of life, sheer brutal rudeness. "Thank you very kindly, master!" said she. "Sorry to disturb you!"
He ought to have said that she was kindly welcome, or that he was very happy, but he said neither, only looking steadily at her. So she simply turned to go away.
She walked as far as the middle of the next field, not sorry to be out of this man's reach; and rather glad that, when she was within it, she was not a young girl, unprotected. That shows the impression he had given her. Also that his steady look was concentrating to a glare as she lost sight of his face, and that she would be glad when she was sure she had seen the last of it. She walked a little quicker as soon as she thought her doing so would attract no notice.
"Hi--missus!" She quickened her pace as the words--a hoarse call--caught her up. She even hoped she might be mistaken--had made a false interpretation of some entirely different sound; not the cawing of one of those rooks--that was against reason. But it might have been a dog's bark at a distance, warped by imagination. She had known that to happen.
If so, it would come again. She stood and waited quietly.
It came again, distinctly. "Hi--missus!" No dog's bark that, but that man's voice, to a certainty, nearer. Then again "Hi--missus!" nearer still--almost close--and the sound of his feet. A halting, dot-and-go-one pace; not lame, but irregular.
She was a courageous old woman, was old Granny Marrable. But the place was a very lonely one, and.... Well--she did not mind about her money!
It was her treasured old gold watch, that her first husband gave her, that she was thinking of....
There!--what a fool she was, to get into such a taking when, ten to one, she had only dropped something, and he was running after her to restore it. She faced about, and looked full at him.
"Ah!" said he. "Take a good look! You've seen _me_ afore. No hurry--easy does it!" His voice showed such entire conviction, and at the same time such a complete freedom from anything threatening or aggressive, that all her fear left her at once. It was a mistake--nothing worse!
But was she absolutely sure, without her glasses? All she could see was that the face was that of a hard man, close-cropped and close-shaved, square and firm in the jaw. Not an ugly face, but certainly not an attractive one. "I think, sir," she said conciliatorily, "you have mistook me for someone else. I am sure."
"Maybe, mother," said he, "you'll know me through your glasses. Got 'em on you?... Ah--that's right! Fish 'em out of your pocket! Now!" As the old lady fitted on her spectacles, which she only used for near objects and reading, the man removed his hat and stood facing her, and repeated the word "Now!"
So absolutely convinced was she that he was merely under a misconception, that she was really only putting on her glasses to humour him, and give him time to find out his mistake. The fact that he had addressed her as "mother" counted for absolutely nothing. Any man in the village would address her as "mother," as often as not. It was affectionate, respectful, conciliatory, but by no means a claim of kinship. The word, moreover, had a distinct tendency to remove her dislike of the speaker, which had not vanished with her fear of him, now quite in abeyance.
"Indeed, sir," said she, after looking carefully at his face, "I cannot call you to mind. I cannot doubt but you have taken me for some other person." Then she fancied that something the man said, half to himself, was:--"That cock won't fight."
But he seemed, she thought, to waver a little, too. And his voice had not its first confidence, as it said:--"Do you mean to say, mother, that you've forgotten my face? _My face!_"
The familiar word "mother" still meant nothing to her--a mere epithet!
Just consider the discrepancies whose reconciliation alone would have made it applicable! When she answered, some renewal of trepidation in her voice was due to the man's earnestness, not to any apprehension of his claim. "I am telling God's own truth, master," she said. "I have never set eyes upon ye in my life, and if I had, I would have known it.
There be some mistake, indeed." Then timorously:--"Whom--whom--might ye take me for?"
The man raised his voice, more excitably than angrily. "What did I say just now?--_mother!_--that's English, ain't it?" But his words had no meaning to her; there was nothing in their structure to change her acceptation of the word "mother," as an apostrophe. Then, in response to the blank unrecognition of her face, he continued:--"What--still? I'm not kidding myself, by God, am I?... No--don't you try it on! I ain't going to have you running away. Not yet a while.... Ah--would you!"
He caught her by the wrist to check her half-shown tendency to turn and run; not, as she thought, from a malefactor, but a madman. A cry for help was stopped by a change in his tone--possibly even by the way his hand caught her wrist; for, though strong, it was not rough or ungentle.
Little enough force was needed to detain her, and no more was used. He was mad, clearly, but not ferocious. "I'm not going to hurt ye, mother,"
said he. "But you leave your eyes on me a minute, and see if I'm a liar." He remained with his own fixed on hers, as one who waits impatiently for what he knows must come.