betray me?” I was speaking imploringly.
“Noa, sure,” repeated Tom.
There was something a little unsatisfactory in the countenance of this light-haired youth, with the sharpish up-turned nose. Throughout our interview he said next to nothing, and smiled lazily to himself, like a man listening to a child’s solemn nonsense, and leading it on, with an amused irony, from one wise sally to another.
Thus it seemed to me that this young clown, without in the least intending to be offensive, was listening to me with a profound and lazy mockery.
I could not choose, however; and, such as he was, I must employ him or none.
“Now, Tom Brice, a great deal depends on this.”
“That’s true for her, Tom Brice,” said Meg, who now and then confirmed my asseverations.
“I’ll give you a pound now, Tom,” and I placed the coin and the letter together in his hand. “And you are to give this letter to Lady Knollys, at Elverston; you know Elverston, don’t you?”
“He does, Miss. Don’t ye, lad?”
“E’es.”
“Well, do so, Tom, and I’ll be good to you so long as I live.”
“D’ye hear, lad?”
“E’es,” said Tom; “it’s very good.”
“You’ll take the letter, Tom?” I said, in much greater trepidation as to his answer than I showed.
“E’es, I’ll take the letter,” said he, rising, and turning it about in his fingers uknder his eye, like a curiosity.
“Tom Brice,” I said, “If you can’t be true to me, say so; but don’t take the letter except to give it to Lady Knollys, at Elverston. If you won’t promise that, let me have the note back. Keep the pound; but tell me that you won’t mention y having asked you to carry a letter to Elverston to anyone.”
For the first time Tom looked perfectly serious. He twiddled the corner of my letter between his finger and thumb, and wore very much the countenance of a poacher about to be committed.
“I don’t want to chouce ye, Miss; but I must take care o’ myself, ye see. The letters goes all through Silas’s fingers to the post, and he’d know damn well this worn’t among ’em. They do say he opens ’em, and reads ’em before they go; an’ that’s his diversion. I don’t know; but I do believe that’s how it be; an’ if this one turned up, they’d all know it went by hand, and I’d be spotted for’t.”
“But you know who I am, Tom, and I’d save you,” said I, eagerly.
“Ye’d want savin’ yerself, I’m thinkin’, if that feel oot,” said Tom, cynically. “I don’t say, though, I’ll not take it — only this — I won’t run my head again a wall for no one.”
“Tom,” I said, with a sudden inspiration, “give me back the letter, and take me out of Bartram; take me to Elverston; it will be the best thing — for you, Tom, I mean — it will indeed — that ever befell you.”
With this clown I was pleading, as for my life; my hand was on his sleeve. I was gazing imploringly in his face.
But it would not do; Tom Brice looked amused again, swung his head a little on one side, grinning sheepishly over his shoulder on the roots of the trees beside him, as if he were striving to keep himself from an uncivil fit of laughter.
“I’ll do what a wise lad may, Miss; but ye don’t know they lads; they bain’t that easy come over; and I won’t get knocked on the head, nor sent to gaol ‘appen, for no good to thee nor me. There’s Meg there, she knows well enough I could na’ manage that; so I won’t try it, Miss, by no chance; no offence, Miss; but I’d rayther not, an’ I’ll just try what I can make o’this; that’s all I can do for ye.”
Tom Brice, with these words, stood up, and looked uneasily in the direction of the Windmill Wood.
“Mind ye, Miss, coom what will, ye’ll not tell o’ me?”
“Whar ‘ill ye go now, Tom?” inquired Meg, uneasily.
“Never ye mind, lass,” answered he, breaking his way through the thicket, and soon disappearing.
“E’es that ‘ill be it — he’ll git into the sheepwalk behind the mound. They’re all down yonder; git ye back, Miss, to the hoose — be the side-door; mind ye, don’t go round the corner;’ and I’ll jets sit awhile among the bushes, and wait a good time for a start. And good-bye, Miss; and don’t ye show like as if there was aught out o’ common on your mind. Hish!”
There was a distant hallooing.
“That be fayther!” she whispered, with a very blank countenance, and listened with her sunburnt hand to her ear.
“‘Tisn’t me, only Davy he’ll be callin’,” she said, with a great sigh, and a joyless smile. “Now git ye away I’ God’s name.”
So running lightly along the path, under cover of this thick wood, I recalled Mary Quince, and together we hastened back again to the house, and entered, as directed, by the side-door, which did not expose us to be seen from the Windmill Wood, and, like two criminals, we stole up by the backstairs, and so through the side-gallery to my room; and there sat down to collect my wits, and try to estimate the exact effect of what had just occurred.
Madame had not returned. That was well; she always visited my room first, and everything was precisely as I had left it — a certain sign that her prying eyes and busy fingers had not been at work during my absence.
When she did appear, strange to say, it was to bring me unexpected comfort. She had in her hand a letter from my dear Lady Knollys — a gleam of sunlight from the free and happy outer world entered with it. The moment Madame left me to myself, I opened it and read as follows:—
“I am so happy, my dearest Maud, in the immediate prospect of seeing you. I have had a really kind letter from poor Silas — poor, I say, for I really compassionate his situation, about which he has been, I do believe, quite frank — at least Ilbury says so, and somehow he happens to know. I have had quite an affecting, changed letter. I will tell you all when I see you. He wants me ultimately to undertake that which would afford me the most unmixed happiness — I mean the care of you, my dear girl. I only fear lest my too eager acceptance of the trust should excite that vein of opposition which is in most human beings, and induce him to think over his offer less favourably again. He says I must come to Bartram, and stay a night, and promises to lodge me comfortably; about which last I honestly do not care a pin, when the chance of a comfortable evening’s gossip with you is in view. Silas explains his sad situation, and must hold himself in readiness for early flight, if he would avoid the risk of losing his personal liberty. It is a sad thing that he should have so irretrievably ruined himself, that poor Austin’s liberality seems to have positively precipitated his extremity. His great anxiety is that I should see you before you leave for your short stay in France. He thinks you must leave before a fortnight. I am thinking of asking you to come over here; I know you would be just as well at Elverston as in France; but perhaps, as he seems disposed to do what we all wish, it may be safer to let his set about it in his own way. The truth is, I have so set my heart upon it that I fear to risk it by crossing him even in a trifle. He says I must fix an early day next week, and talks as if he meant to urge me to make a longer visit than he defined. I shall be only too happy. I begin, my dear Maud, to think that there is no use in trying to control events, and that things often turn out best, and most exactly to our wishes, by being left quite to themselves. I think it was Talleyrand who praised the talent of waiting so much. In high spirits, and with my head brimful of plans, I remain, dearest Maud, ever your affectionate cousin,
MONICA”
Here was an inexplicable puzzle! A faint radiance of hope, however, began to overspread a landscape only a few minutes before darkened by total eclipse; but construct what theory I might, all were inconsistent