Chapter XXXI: Calling in the Blacksmith

Things were swiftly coming to a crisis in Miss Hallet's house, though that lady was very far from suspecting it. Time had again gone on since the last chapter, and Walter Dance was about again.

After the evening that witnessed Miss Hallet's fright at the vision of the Grey Friar, she had been very ill. Whether it was the terror itself, or her mortification at having betrayed it, or the fall in the road that affected her, certain it was that she had a somewhat long illness, and was attended by Mr. Parker. No one could be more attentive to her than Jane was; and Miss Hallet was willing to forget that the girl had given cause for complaint. But Miss Hallet found, now that she was well, that the same cause was still in existence: at all times of unseasonably late hours Jane would be abroad. Scarcely an evening passed but Jane would make an excuse to go out; or go out without excuse if none could be framed. She had taken lately to go more to Stilborough, often without assigning any reason for it. The hour at which she would come in was uncertain; sometimes it was after ten--a very unhallowed hour in the sober estimation of her aunt. One night she had stayed out till one o'clock in the morning, sending Miss Hallet into a perfect fever of suspense and anger. She ran in, panting with the haste she had made up the cliff, and she looked worn, haggard, almost wild. Miss Hallet attacked her with some harsh words: Jane responded by a burst of tears, and declared in a tone of truth that her aunt could scarcely disbelieve, that she had only been "looking at the sea" and looking at it alone.

From that evening, Miss Hallet had taken to watch Jane as a subject of curiosity. Jane was getting nervous. More than once when Miss Hallet had gone upstairs and surprised, unintentionally, Jane in her bedroom--for that lady, since her illness, had walked about in perfectly noiseless list shoes, for comfort only, not to come upon people unawares--she had found Jane standing over a certain open drawer. Jane would shut it hastily and lock it with shaking fingers, and sometimes shake all over besides. Jane had never been nervous in her life, mentally reasoned Miss Hallet: why should she be becoming so now? Her eyes had habitually a strangely-sad look in them, something like those of a hunted hare; her face was worn and thin. The sudden appearance of anyone at the door or window would make Jane start and turn pale: she could eat nothing, and would often be so absorbed in thought as to give contrary answers. "What is the time by the clock, Jane?" her aunt might say, for instance: "No, aunt, I forgot it," might be the answer. Altogether, taking one thing with another, Miss Hallet came to the conclusion that there was some mystery about Jane, just as certain other personages of our story decided there was mystery in the Friar's Keep.

The matter troubled Miss Hallet. She knew not what to do, to whom to speak, or of whom to ask advice. Speaking to Jane herself went for nothing: for the girl invariably denied, with all the unconcern she could put on, that anything was amiss or that she was different from what she used to be. It was now that Miss Hallet felt her isolated position, and the reserve with which she had treated the village.

Her own illness had left her somewhat less strong-minded than before, or she would never have spoken of it. One day, however, when Mrs. Bent came up to pay a social visit, and Jane had gone down the cliff on some necessary errand, Miss Hallet, who had been "tried" that morning by Jane's having an hysterical fit, condescended to speak of Harry Castlemaine in connection with her niece, and to ask Mrs. Bent whether she ever saw them together now.

"Pretty nearly every other evening," was the plain and most unwelcome answer.

Miss Hallet coughed, to cover a groan of censure. "Where do they walk to?" she asked.

"Mostly under the high cliff towards the Limpets. It's lonely there at night--nobody to be met with, ever."

"Do you walk there--that you should see them?" asked keen Miss Hallet.

"To tell you the truth, I have gone there on purpose to see," was the landlady's unblushing answer. "I don't approve of it. It's very foolish of Jane."

"Foolish; yes, very: but Jane would never behave lightly!" returned Miss Hallet, a blush of resentment on her thin cheeks.

"I don't say she would: Jane ought to have better sense than that. But it is pretty nigh as bad to give rise to talk," added candid Mrs. Bent: "many a good name has been tarnished without worse cause. It's not nice news, either, to be carried up to Greylands' Rest."

"Is it carried there, Mrs. Bent?"

"Net yet, that I know of. But it will be one of these days. I should put a summary stop to it, Miss Hallet."

"Yes, yes," said the unfortunate lady, smoothing her mittened hands together nervously, as she inwardly wondered how that was to be done, with Jane in her present temper. And, perplexed with her many difficulties, she began enlarging upon Jane's new and strange moods, even mentioning the locked drawer she had surprised Jane at, and openly wondering what she kept in it.

"Love-letters," curtly observed discerning Mrs. Bent.

"Love-letters!" ejaculated Miss Hallet, who had never had a love-letter in her life, and looked upon them as no better than slow poison.

"There's not a doubt of it. His. I dare say he has got a lot of Jane's. I gave her a bit of my mind the day before yesterday, when she came to the inn to bring back the newspaper," added Mrs. Bent. "Gave it plainly, too."

"And--how did Jane receive it?"

"As meek as any lamb. 'I am not the imprudent girl you appear to think me, Mrs. Bent,' says she, with her cheeks as red as our cock's comb when he has been fighting. 'Mr. Harry Castlemaine would not like to hear you say this,' she went on. 'Mr. Harry Castlemaine might lump it,' I answered her. 'It wouldn't affect him much any way, I expect, Jane Hallet. Mr. Harry Castlemaine might set the sea afire with a trolley-load of burning tar-barrels if he so minded, and folks would just wink at him; while you would have the place about your ears if you dropped in but half a thimbleful.' Jane wished me good morning at that, and betook herself away."

Mrs. Bent's visit ended with this. Upon her departure, Miss Hallet put on her shawl and bonnet and proceeded to take her daily walk outside the door in the sun, pacing the narrow path from end to end. After Mrs. Bent's information, she could no longer doubt that Jane's changed mood must be owing to this acquaintanceship with Mr. Harry Castlemaine. A love affair, of course;--girls were so idiotic!--and Jane's trouble must arise from the knowledge that it could end in nothing. So impossible had it seemed to Miss Hallet that Jane, with her good sense, could really have anything to say, in this way, to the son of the Master of Greylands, that since the night of the expedition when she had gone after Jane to watch her, and received her fright as the result, she had suffered the idea by degrees to drop from her mind: and this revelation of Mrs. Bent's was as much a shock to her as though she had never had a former hint of it.

"Jane mast have lost her head!" soliloquised the angry lady, her face very stern. "She must know it cannot come to anything. They stand as far apart as the two poles. Our family was good in the old days; as good perhaps as that of the Castlemaines; but things altered with us. And I went out as lady's-maid, for it was that, not companion, and they know it, and I dare say put me, in their thoughts, on a level with their own servants. Mr. Castlemaine is polite when he meets me, and takes his hat off, and sometimes stays to chat for a minute: but he would no more think my niece a fit wife for his son than he would think the poorest fisherman's girl in the place fit. Jane must have lost her senses!"

Miss Hallet stopped to draw her shawl more closely round her, for the wind was brisk to-day; and then resumed her promenade and her reflections.

"Rather than the folly should continue, I would go direct to the Master of Greylands, and tell him. He would pretty soon stop it. And I will do it, if I can make no impression on Jane. I should like to know, though, before speaking to her, what footing they are upon: whether it is but a foolish fancy for each other, meaning nothing, or whether she considers it to be more serious. He cannot have been so dishonourable as to say anything about marriage! At least, I--I hope not. He might as well offer her the stars: and Jane ought to know there's as much chance of the one as the other. I wonder what is in the love-letters?"

Miss Hallet took a turn or two revolving this one point. A wish crossed her that she could read the letters. She wished it not for curiosity's sake: in truth, she would not have touched them willingly with a pair of tongs: but that their contents might guide her own conduct. If the letters really contained nothing but nonsense--boyish nonsense, Miss Hallet termed it--she might deal with the matter with Jane alone: but if Mr. Harry had been so absurd as to fill her up with notions of marriage, why then she would carry the affair up to Greylands' Rest, and leave it to be dealt with by Greylands' master.

Entering the house, she went upstairs. It was not likely that Jane had left the drawer unlocked; still it might have happened so, from inadvertence or else. But no. Miss Hallet stood in Jane's room and pulled at the drawer in question, which was the first long drawer in the chest. It resisted her efforts. Taking her own keys from her pocket, she tried every likely one, but none would fit. Nevertheless, she determined to get those letters on the first opportunity, believing it to lie in her duty. Not a shade of doubt arose in her mind, as to Mrs. Bent's clever theory: she was as sure the drawer contained Harry Castlemaine's love-letters, as though she had it open and saw them lying before her. Love-letters, and nothing else. What else, was there, that Jane should care to conceal?

"Jane's instincts are those of a lady," thought Miss Hallet, looking round the neat room approvingly at the pretty taste displayed, at the little ornamental things on the muslin-draped dressing-table. "Yes, they are. And there's her Bible and Prayer-book on their own stand; and there's--but--dear me! where on earth did these spring from?"

She had come to a glass of hot-house flowers. Not many. Half a dozen or so; but they were fresh, and of rare excellence.

"Jane must have brought them in last night. Smuggled them in, I should say, for I saw none in her hand. It is easy to know where they came from; there's only one hot-house in the whole place, and that's at Greylands' Rest."

Miss Hallet went down more vexed than she had come up. She was very precise and strait-laced: no one could deny that: but here was surely enough food to disturb her. Just after she had resumed her walk outside, her mind running upon how she could best contrive to have the drawer opened, and so get at the love-letters, Jane appeared.

Slowly and wearily was she ascending the cliff, as if she could hardly put one foot before the other. Miss Hallet could but notice it. Her face was pale; the one unoccupied arm hung down heavily, the head was bent.

"You look tired to death, Jane! What have you been doing to fatigue yourself like that?"

Jane started at the salutation, lifted her head, and saw her aunt. As if by magic, her listless manner changed, and she ran up the short bit of remaining path briskly. Her pale face had taken quite a glow of colour when she reached Miss. Hallet.

"I am not tired, aunt. I was only thinking."

"Thinking of what?" returned Miss Hallett. "You looked and walked as though you were tired: that's all I know."

"Of something Susan Pike has just told me," laughed Jane. "It might have turned out to be no laughing matter, though. Jack Tuff has taken a drop too much this morning and fallen out of a little boat he got into. Susan says he came up the beach like a drowned rat."

Jane went into the house while talking, and put down the basket she had carried. Miss Hallet followed her.

"I could only get the scrag end this morning, aunt: the best end was sold. So it must be boiled. And there's the newspaper, aunt: Mrs. Bent ran across to me with it."

"Put it on at once, then, with a sliced carrot or two," said Miss Hallet, alluding to the meat.

"And bacon," resumed Jane, "is a halfpenny a pound dearer. I think, aunt, it would be well to buy a good-sized piece of bacon at Stilborough. I am sure we give Pike a penny a pound more than we should pay there."

"Well--yes--it might be," acknowledged Miss Hallet for once: who very rarely listened to offered suggestions.

"I could bring it back this afternoon," observed Jane. "What should take you to Stilborough this afternoon, pray?"

"I want to take the socks in. And you know, aunt--I told you--that Mrs. Pugh asked me to go to tea there one day this week: I may as well stay with her to-day."

Jane had expected no end of opposition; but Miss Hallet made none. She went out to walk again without further remark, leaving Jane to the household duties. It turned out that Susan Pike was going to Stilborough, being also invited to Mrs. Pugh's. Jane mentioned it to her aunt at dinner, but Miss Hallet answered nothing.

About four o'clock, that damsel, attired in all the colours of the rainbow and as gay as a harlequin, came running up the cliff to call for Jane. Jane, dressed neatly, and looking very nice as usual, was ready for her; and they started together, Jane carrying her paper of socks and an umbrella.

"Well I never, Jane! you are not a-going to lug along that there big umbrella, are you?" cried Miss Susan, halting at the threshold, and putting up a striped parasol the size of a dinner-plate.

"I am not sure about the weather," returned Jane, looking at the sky. "I should not like to get wet. What do you think of it, aunt?"

"I think it likely to rain before you are back again: and you will either take the umbrella, Jane or you will put off that best bonnet for your old one. What is the matter with the umbrella, Susan Pike?--It will not throw discredit upon anybody."

It was, in fact, a handsome, though very large umbrella of green silk, a present to Jane from Miss Hallet. Susan shrugged her shoulders when they were out of sight; and Miss Hallet wondered for the hundredth time at Jane's making a companion of that common, illiterate girl.

She sat down to read the newspaper after they were gone, took her tea, and at dusk put on her things to go down the cliff. It was a very dull evening, dark before its time: heavy clouds of lead colour covered the sky. In a rather remote angle of the village lived the blacksmith, one Joe Brown; a small, silent, sooty kind of man in a leather apron, who might be seen at his forge from early morning to late night. He was there now, hammering at a piece of iron, as Miss Hallet entered.

"Good-evening, Brown."

Brown looked up at the address, and discerned who the speaker was by the red glare of his fire--Miss Hallet. He touched his hair in answer, and gave her back the good-evening.

She told him at once what she wanted, putting her veil aside to speak. The key of a drawer had been mislaid in her house, and she wished Brown to come and open it.

"Unlock him, or pick him, mum?" asked Brown.

"Only to unlock it."

"Won't the morrow do, mum? I be over busy to-night."

"No, to-morrow will not do," replied Miss Hallet, in one of those decisive tones that carry weight. "I want it opened to-night, and you must come at once. I shall pay you well."

So the man yielded: saying that in five minutes he would leave his forge, and be up the cliff almost as soon as she was. He kept his word: and Miss Hallet had but just got her things off when he arrived, carrying a huge bunch of keys of various sizes. It was beginning to rain. Not unfrequently was he called out on a similar errand, and would take with him either these keys, or instruments for picking a lock, as might be required.

She led the way upstairs to Jane's room, and pointed out the drawer. Brown stooped to look at the lock, holding the candle close, and at the second trial, put in a key that turned easily. He drew the drawer a little open to show that the work was done. Nothing was to be seen but a large sheet of white paper, covering the drawer half way up. The contents whatever they might be, were under it.

"Thank you," said Miss Hallet, closing the drawer again, while he took the key off the bunch at her request, to lend her until the morning. "Don't mention this little matter, Brown, will you be so good," she added, handing the man a shilling. "I do not care that my niece or the neighbours should believe me careless with my keys." And he readily promised.

The rain was now pouring down in torrents. Miss Hallet stood at the front door with the man, really sorry that he should have to go through such rain.

"It ain't nothing, mum," he said. And, taking his leather apron off to throw over his shoulders, Brown went swinging away.

As the echo of his footsteps, descending the cliff, died away on her ear, Miss Hallet slipped the bolt of the house-door, and went upstairs again. Putting the candle down on the white covering; for Miss Hallet and Jane had toilette covers in their rooms as well as their betters; she opened the drawer again. If the sheet of white paper covered only love-letters, there must be an astonishing heap of them: the colour flew into Miss Hallet's cheeks as an idea dawned upon her that there might be presents besides.

She pulled a chair forward, and drew the candle close to the edge of the drawers, preparing herself for a long sitting. Not a single letter would she leave unread: no, nor a single word in any one of them. She was safe for two good hours, for Jane was not likely to be in before nine: it might not be so soon as that, if the two girls waited at Stilborough for the storm to cease.

Setting her spectacles on her nose, Miss Hallet lifted the white paper off the contents of the drawer; and then sat gazing in surprise. There were no love-letters; no letters of any kind. The bottom of the drawer was lined with some delicate looking articles, that she took to be dolls' clothes. Pretty little cambric caps, their borders crimped with a silver knife by Jane's deft fingers; miniature frocks; small bed-gowns--and such like.

"Why, what on earth!"--began Miss Hallet, after a prolonged perplexity: and in her bewildered astonishment, she gingerly took up one of the little caps and turned it about close to her spectacles.

All in a moment, with a rush and a whirl; a rush of dread in her heart, a whirl of dreadful confusion in her brain; the truth came to the unfortunate lady. She staggered a step or two back to the waiting chair, and fell down on it, faint and sick. The appearance of the Grey Friar had brought most grievous terror to her; but it had not brought the awful dismay of this.

For the dainty wardrobe was not a doll's wardrobe but a baby's.