The White Virgin

Jessop eagerly grasped the extended hand.

“It means being loss to thousands – fortune to two.”

“Us two?” said Jessop hoarsely.

“Exactly! It is in a nutshell, my boy. All is fair in love, in war, and money-making, eh? Here is my plan.”

Chapter Three.

Another

“Come, I say, my dear, what’s the good of being so stand-offish. It’s very nice and pretty, and makes a man fonder of you, and that’s why you do it, I know! I say! I didn’t know that the pretty Derbyshire lasses in this out-of-the-way place were as coy and full of their little games as our London girls.” Out-of-the-way place indeed! Dinah Gurdon knew that well enough, as, with her teeth set fast and her eyes dilated, she hurried along that afternoon over the mountain-side. The path was an old track, which had been made hundreds of years before, so that ponies could drag the little trucks up and down, and in and out, but always lower and lower to the smelting-house down in the dale, a mere crack in the limestone far below, whose perpendicular jagged walls were draped with ivy, and at whose foot rushed along the clear crystal trout-river, which brought a stranger into those solitudes once in a way. But not on this particular afternoon, for Dinah looked vainly for some tweed-clothed gentleman with lithe rod over his shoulder and fishing-creel slung on back, to whom she could appeal for protection from the man who followed her so closely behind on the narrow, shelf-like path.

Two miles at least to go yet to the solitary nook in the hills just above the bend in the stream, where the pretty, romantic, flower-clothed cottage stood; and where only, as far as she knew, help could be found. And at last, feeling that she must depend entirely upon herself for protection, she drew her breath hard, and mastered the strong desire within her to cry aloud and run along the stony track as fast as her strength would allow.

But she only walked fast, with her sunburned, ungloved fingers tightly holding her basket, her face hidden by her close sun-bonnet, and her simply made blue spotted cotton dress giving forth a peculiar ruffing sound as she hurried on with “that man” close behind.

She had seen that man again and again for the past two months, and he had spoken to her twice, and each time she had imagined that he was some stranger who was passing through, and whom one might never see again. She knew better now.

He was not a bad-looking fellow of five-and-thirty; and an artist, who could have robed him as he pleased, instead of having him in ordinary clothes, could not have wished for a better model for a picturesque ruffian than Michael Sturgess, a man born in London, but who had passed the greater part of his time in Cornwall and in Wales. A good workman, but one who had a kind of notoriety among his fellows for divers little acts of gallantry, real and imaginary. He was not a man of strong perceptions or experiences out of mines, and he judged womankind, as he called them, by their faces and their clothes. Silk and fashionable bonnets suggested ladies to him; cotton dresses and pretty faces, girls who enjoyed a bit of flirtation, and who were his lawful prey.

“I say, you know,” he cried, “what’s the good of rushing on like that, and making yourself so hot? Hold hard now; you’ve done the coy long enough. Sit down and rest, and let’s have a good long talk. You need not look round; there’s nobody about, and it’s a good two miles to the cottage where your old dad lives.”

Dinah started and increased her pace.

“You see I know. I’ve seen the old boy in his brown alpaca and straw hat; I’ve watched him, same as I have you – you pretty little bright-eyed darling. Come, stop now; I want to make love to you.”

As Michael Sturgess said these last words, he bent forward and caught hold of the folds of the dress, and tried to stop the girl, who sprang round in an instant, striking the dress from the man’s hand, and facing him with her handsome face flashing its indignation.

“How dare you!” she cried. “Such insolence! You forget yourself, sir, and if my father were here – ”

“Which he isn’t, dear. But bravo! That’s very nice and pretty, and makes you look ten times as handsome as ever. I like it. I love to see a girl with some pluck in her. But come now, what’s the good of going on like that and pretending to be the fine lady, I know what you are, and who you are, and where you live, as I told you.”

“I desire you to leave me instantly, sir. My father is a gentleman, and you will be severely punished if you dare to interrupt me like this.”

“Go on,” said the man, with a laugh. “I know the old boy, and have talked to him twice. It’s all right, dear, don’t be so proud. I mean the right thing by you. I’m down here to take charge of the ‘White Virgin’ yonder, behind where you live, and want to take charge of this little white virgin too. See? I shall have a grand place of it, and I’ll make quite the lady of you. There now, you see it’s all right. Let me carry the basket; it’s too big and heavy for your pretty little hands.”

He made a snatch at the creel she was carrying, but she drew back quickly, and hurried on once more, fighting hard to keep back the hysterical tears, and vainly looking to right and left for help or a means of escape from the unwelcome attentions forced upon her. But she looked in vain. The hillside sloped off too rapidly for any one but a most able climber to mount, and to have attempted to descend meant doing so at great risk to life and limb.

There was nothing for it but to hurry on, and this she did with her breath coming faster – faster from excitement and exertion, as she recalled his words.

What did he say? He was in charge of the “White Virgin” mine – the old disused series of shaft and excavation down the narrow chasm which ran like a huge ragged gash into the mountain, and from which hundreds of thousands of tons of stone and refuse had been tilted down the mountain-side to form the moss-grown ugly cascade of stones which stood out from the hill-slope forming a prominent object visible for miles.

The shelf she was following led past the narrow ravine, with its many pathways cut in the steep sides all running towards the great shaft, fenced in with blocks of stone. She had been there several times with her father, bearing him company during his walks in search of minerals, so that the way was perfectly familiar to her, though it was a place not to be approached without a feeling of dread. Country superstition had made it the home of the old miners, who now and then revisited the glimpses of the moon; two people had been, it was said, murdered there, and their bodies hidden in the dark, wet mazes of the workings; and within the recollection of the oldest inhabitant an unhappy forsaken maiden, who feared to face the reproaches of her relatives, had sought oblivion in the water at the bottom of the principal shaft, and her body had never been found.

It was an uncanny place on a bright sunny day – after night a spot to be avoided for many reasons; but Dinah Gurdon approached it now with feelings of hope, for she felt that the man who was in charge would leave her there if she only maintained her firmness.

“Why, what a silly little thing it is!” he said, in a low, eager voice, his words sounding subdued and confidential as he uttered them close to her ear. “What are you afraid of? Why, bless your pretty heart, it’s plain to see you haven’t been troubled much by the stupid bumpkins about here. Running away like that just because a man tells you he loves you. And I do, my pretty one, and have ever since I came down here. Soon as I clapped eyes on you, I says to myself, ‘That’s the lass for me.’ Why, I’ve done down here what I haven’t done since I left Sunday-school – I’ve come three Sundays running to church, so as to see your bonny face. I saw you come by this morning when I was yonder leaning over the fence. ‘Going to market,’ I says. ‘Wonder whether she’d bring me an ounce of tobacco from the shop, if I asked her?’ But I was just too late, so I sat down and waited for you. ‘She won’t want me to be seen with her in the village,’ I said. ‘Girls like to keep these things quiet at first.’ So do I, dear. I say, it’s pretty lonesome for me down here till they begin working, but I’ve got plenty of time for you, so let’s make good use of it while we can.”

Dinah paid no heed to his words in her alarm, but they forced themselves upon her unwilling ears, as she hurried through the solitary place, feeling that every step took her nearer home, and toward the entrance to the mine gap, where this man would leave her.

“I say, you know, aren’t you carrying this on a bit too hard?” he half-whispered. “Isn’t it time you gave way just a little bit? You see how nice and gentle I am with you, dear. Some fellows would be rough and lay hold of you, but I’m not that sort. I like to be tender and kind with a girl. Just because one’s big and strong, one don’t need to be a regular brute. I say, come now, that’s enough. Let’s look at your pretty face. Take off your sun-bonnet. It’s a darned ugly one, and I’ll go over to Derby some night and buy you the prettiest that there is in the shops. I will, ’pon my soul! There’s no humbug about me, my dear. Why, you’ve made this old wilderness look quite cheerful, and if it hadn’t been for knowing that you lived down there by the river, I don’t believe I should have stopped it out. I should have just written off to the governor and said, ‘I’m coming back to London.’ I say, wouldn’t you like to go up to London, my dear? I’ll take you and pay up like a man. – I mean it.”

Dinah’s heart gave a great leap, for not fifty yards farther on there was the narrow natural gateway in the side of the hill, leading right into the deep, zigzag rift which clave the mountain from the top far down into the bowels of the earth, and spread in secondary maze-like chasms farther and farther in here through the limestone, where the dirty grey lead ore was found in company with masses of crystalline growth glittering with galena. Here, too, was the wondrous conglomerate of lily encrinite, once animated flowers of stone, forming the mountain masses of Derbyshire marble, where a calm sea once spread its deep waters in the days when the earth was young. Here were the beds and veins of the transparent violet spar, locally known as the “Blue John,” which glistened here and there in the natural caves, side by side with stalactite and stalagmite, wherever water filtered through the strata, and came out charged with the lime which had gone on cementing spar and shell together into solid blocks.

A weird, strange place to any one save the lovers of the strange, and then only explored in company by the light of chemical and wick. A place generally shunned, and only to be sought or chosen as a sanctuary by one who was pursued. But circumstances alter cases, and matters happen strangely and influence our lives in unexpected ways.

Dinah Gurdon, Major Gurdon’s only child, paying no heed to her follower’s words, kept hurrying on, for she had nearly reached the ragged entrance to the mine gap, feeling that at last she would be free, and then the insolent, self-satisfied ruffian would not dare to pursue her farther, for he had said that this was the place he had in charge. But if he did, another quarter of a mile would take her round the great limestone buttress formed by the mine spoil; and then she would be on the south slope of the Tor, in full view of the narrow valley, up out of which her father would probably be coming, and he would see her, as he came to meet her, a mile away.

She had kept to her steady, quick walk as long as she could; but now the exultation produced by the sight of freedom reassured her, and unable to control herself, she started off running past the natural gateway in the rocky wall on her right.

But Michael Sturgess was too quick for her.

“No, you don’t, my pretty one,” he cried, as he dashed in pursuit, overtook her in a few yards, and caught her by the dress, which tore loudly in his hand. The next moment he had his arm round her waist, but she struck at him wildly as he now held her and blocked her way. There was a momentary struggle, and she was free once more. She turned as if about to leap down the steep slope at her side; but the attempt was too desperate, and she ran back a few yards, with the man close behind, and then turned again and dashed frantically between the two natural buttresses, down the steep path leading to the mazes and gloomy passages of the ancient mine.

Michael Sturgess stopped short for a moment, burst into a coarse laugh, and gave his leg a slap.

“I knowed it,” he cried. “Oh, these girls, these girls!”

The next minute he was in full pursuit, and ten minutes later, faint, wild, and echoing up the walls of the shadowy solitude, there was a piercing cry.

A great bird rose slowly, circling higher about the dismal gap, and then all was still.

Chapter Four.

Jessop’s Weakness

“I don’t care. I will speak, and if master gets to know, so much the better.”

“Will you hold your silly tongue?”

“No, I won’t. I’ve held it too long. It’s disgraceful, that’s what it is, and I’ll tell Mr Clive of your goings-on with his sweetheart.”

“Look here, Lyddy, do you want me to poison you, or take you out somewhere and push you into a river?”

“Yes,” cried the girl addressed, passionately. “I wish you would, and then there’d be an end of the misery and wretchedness. And as for that Miss Janet Praed – ”

“Hold your tongue, you silly, jealous little fool!”

“Oh yes, I know I’m a fool – fool to believe all your wicked lies. And so would you be jealous. I saw it all last time she was here – a slut engaged to be married to your brother, and all the time making eyes at you, while you are carrying on with her shamefully, and before me, too. It’s cruel and disgraceful. I may be only a servant, but I’ve got my feelings the same as other people, and I’d die sooner than behave as she did, and you did, and – and – I wish I was dead, I do – that I do.”

“Will you be quiet, you silly little goose. Do you want everybody in the house to know of our flirtation?”

“Flirtation!” cried the girl, wiping her streaming eyes. “You regularly proposed and asked me to be your wife.”

“Why, of course. Haven’t I promised that I would marry you some day?”

“Yes – some day,” said the girl bitterly; “but some day never comes. Oh, Jessop, dear Jessop! you made me love you so, and you’re breaking my heart, going on as you do with that Miss Praed.”