I thought I detected marks of new chiselling here and there. The screws, too, looked new; and they and the scars on the woodwork were freshly smeared over with some coloured stuff by way of disguise.
While I was making these observations, I heard the key stealthily stirred. I suspect that Madame wished to surprise me. Her approaching step, indeed, was seldom audible; she had the soft tread of the feline tribe.
I was standing in the centre of the room confronting her when she entered.
“Why did you lock the door, Madame?” I demanded.
She slipped in suddenly with an insidious smirk, and locked the door hastily.
“Hish!” whispered Madame, raising her broad palm; and then screwing in her cheeks, she made an ogle over her shoulder in the direction of the passage.
“Hish! be quaite, cheaile, weel you, and I weel tale you everything presently.”
She paused, with her ear laid to the door.
“Now I can speak, ma chère; I weel tell a you there is bailiff in the house, two, three, four soche impertinent fallows! They have another as bad as themselve to make a leest of the furniture; we most keep them out of these rooms, dear Maud.”
“You left the key in the door on the outside,” I retorted; “that was not to keep them out, but me in, Madame.”
“Deed I leave the key in the door?” ejaculated Madame, with both hands raised, and such a genuine look of consternation as for a moment shook me.
It was the nature of this woman’s deceptions that they often puzzled though they seldom convinced me.
“I re-ally think, Maud, all those so frequent changes and excite-ments they weel overturn my poor head.”
“And the windows are secured with iron bars — what are they for?” I whispered sternly, pointing with my finger at these grim securities.
“That is for more a than forty years, when Sir Phileep Aylmer was to reside here, and had this room for his children’s nursery, and was afraid they should fall out.”
“But if you look you will find these bars have been put here very recently: the screws and marks are quite new.”
“Eendeed!” ejaculated Madame, with prolonged emphasis, in precisely the same consternation. “Why, my dear, they told a me down stair what I have tell a you, when I ask the reason! Late a me see.”
And Madame mounted on a chair, and made her scrutiny with much curiosity, but could not agree with me as to the very recent date of the carpentry.
There is nothing, I think, so exasperating as that sort of falsehood which affects not to see what is quite palpable.
“Do you mean to say, Madame, that you really think those chisellings and screws are forty years old?”
“How can I tell, cheaile? What does signify whether it is forty or only fourteen years? Bah! we av other theeng to theenk about. Those villain men! I am glad to see bar and bolt, and lock and key, at least, to our room, to keep soche faylows out!”
At that moment a knock came to the door, and Madame’s nasal “in moment” answered promptly, and she opened the door, stealthily popping out her head.
“Oh, that is all right; go you long, no ting more, go way.”
“Who’s there?” I cried.
“Hold a your tongue,” said Madame imperiously to the visitor, whose voice I fancied I recognised —“go way.”
Out slipped Madame again, locking the door; but this time she returned immediately, bearing a tray with breakfast.
I think she fancied that I would perhaps attempt to break away and escape; but I had no such thought at that moment. She hastily set down the tray on the floor at the threshold, locking the door as before.
My share of breakfast was a little tea; but Madame’s digestion was seldom disturbed by her sympathies, and she ate voraciously. During this process there was a silence unusual in her company; but when her meal was ended she proposed a reconnaissance, professing much uncertainty as to whether my Uncle had been arrested or not.
“And in case the poor old gentleman be poot in what you call stone jug, where are we to go my dear Maud — to Knowl or to Elverston? You must direct.”
And so she disappeared, turning the key in the door as before. It was an old custom of hers, locking herself in her room, and leaving the key in the lock; and the habit prevailed, for she left it there again.
With a heavy heart I completed my simple toilet, wondering all the while how much of Madame’s story might be false and how much, if any, true. Then I looked out upon the dingy courtyard below, in its deep damp shadow, and thought, “How could an assassin have scaled that height in safety, and entered so noiselessly as not to awaken the slumbering gamester?” Then there were the iron bars across my window. What a fool had I been to object to that security!
I was labouring to reassure myself, and keep all ghastly suspicions at arm’s length. But I wished that my room had been to the front of the house, with some view less dismal.
Lost in these ruminations of fear, as I stood at the window I was startled by the sound of a sharp tread on the lobby, and by the key turning in the lock of my door.
In a panic I sprang back into the corner, and stood with my eyes fixed upon the door. It opened a little, and the black head of Meg Hawkes was introduced.
“Oh, Meg!” I cried; “thank God!”
“I guessed ’twas you, Miss Maud. I am feared, Miss.”
The miller’s daughter was pale, and her eyes, I thought were red and swollen.
“Oh, Meg! for God’s sake, what is it all?”
“I darn’t come in. The old un’s gone down, and locked the cross-door, and left me to watch. They think I care nout about ye, no more nor themselves. I donna know all, but summat more nor her. They tell her nout, she’s so gi’n to drink; they say she’s not safe, an’ awful quarrelsome. I hear a deal when fayther and Master Dudley be a-talkin’ in the mill. They think, comin’ in an’ out, I don’t mind; but I put one think an’ t’other together. An’ don’t ye eat nor drink nout here, Miss; hide away this; it’s black enough, but wholesome anyhow!” and she slipt a piece of coarse loaf from under her apron. “Hide it mind. Drink nout but the water in the jug there — it’s clean spring.”
“Oh, Meg! Oh, Meg! I know what you mean,” said I, faintly.
“Ay, Miss, I’m feared they’ll try it; they’ll try to make away wi’ ye somehow. I’m goin’ to your friends arter dark; I darn’t try it no sooner. I’ll git awa to Ellerston, to your lady-cousin, and I’ll bring ’em back wi’ me in a rin; so keep a good hairt, lass. Meg Hawkes will stan’ to ye. Ye were better to me than fayther and mother, and a’;” and she clasped me round the waist, and buried her head in my dress; “an’ I’ll gie my life for ye, darling, and if they hurt ye I’ll kill myself.”
She recovered her sterner mood quickly —
“Not a word, lass,” she said, in her old tone. “Don’t ye try to git away — they’ll kill ye — ye can’t do’t. Leave a’ to me. It won’t be, whatever it is, till two or three o’clock in the morning. I’ll ha’e them a’ here long afore; so keep a brave heart — there’s a darling.”
I suppose she heard, or fancied she heard, a step approaching, for she said —
“Hish!”
Her pale wild face vanished, the door shut quickly and softly, and the key turned again in the lock.
Meg, in her rude way, had spoken softly — almost under her breath; but no prophecy shrieked by the Pythoness ever thundered so madly in the ears of the hearer. I dare say that Meg fancied I was marvellously little moved by her words. I felt