A Woman's Burden: A Novel

"I did live in the country once, Dicky," Miriam sighed. "But that was long, long ago. I lived by the sea at one time – there are wonderful things in the sea, dear."

"I've read 'Midshipman Easy,' and I should like awfully to be a sailor."

Miriam laughed.

"That is not exactly what I meant. Never mind, come along, there's the church; I want to walk across the meadow to it."

"Oh, that's jolly, I want to see the bull."

"What bull, Dicky?"

"Oh, an awful bull – he gores people."

"Oh, Dicky" – Miriam looked apprehensive – "perhaps we had better go round by the road. Don't, Dicky, don't."

The boy had jumped over the stile into the meadow.

"I only want to see if he's there," he cried, and scampered over the grass – a little grey figure with a red scarf. Suddenly he stopped short and looked down the meadow. Miriam looked also, to see the bull dashing along towards the boy, who was too terrified to move. Reproaching herself for not having prevented his bolting away from her, she jumped into the meadow herself and ran to the rescue, and managed to reach him before the bull did, for on seeing another figure the animal stopped short with a comical air of surprise, and pawing the ground began to bellow loudly. With a white face but a courageous heart Miriam caught Dicky to her breast, and began slowly to retreat towards the hedge, still facing the beast. By this time the frail little lad was sobbing hysterically. The bull tossed his head and came nearer – so near that Miriam could have screamed. Putting down the child for a moment, she opened her parasol, and ran straight at the animal. Aghast and disconcerted he turned, whereupon she picked up Dicky and raced for the stile – fatal mistake! As soon as he saw her flying, the bull followed fast. She was nearing the hedge, but the animal was close behind her, and she screamed aloud, giving herself up for lost.

"Hullo!" cried a fresh young voice, "run hard – hard – for your life!"

A man jumped over the hedge, and flourishing a stick, got between the pursuer and pursued. As he passed Miriam, he tore the loose cape she wore from her shoulders, and threw it at the infuriated animal as he came lunging along head downward. It caught on his horns, fell over his eyes, and the next moment, quite blinded, he stumbled on his knees. The man caught up with Miriam, and putting his arm round her, half pushed, half carried her to the stile. In a minute the three were over it and in safety, while the bull, having freed his head from the shawl, stood looking at his escaped victims and bellowing his disappointment. It was a dishevelled trio which dropped down on the grass beside the stile, out of breath, and with violently beating hearts.

"Thank God!" gasped Miriam, taking Dicky on her lap to soothe him.

"You have lost your cape though," said their preserver.

"Better than losing my life. I have to thank you for that. Hush, Dicky," and she calmed the nervous child.

"I think you did most of the saving," said the young man admiringly. "I came in at the finish, so I must decline the glory. I never saw a neater and pluckier thing."

"Oh, Cousin Gerald," sobbed Dicky, "I'm glad the bull didn't gore you. You were just like a torry-door of Spain. I've seen them in pictures."

"Am I to take that as a compliment, Dicky? What do you say, Miss Crane?"

"Oh, I think it is a very great compliment, Mr. Arkel."

The young man – he was a handsome, fair-haired young fellow in a grey tweed suit – looked at her with a quizzical expression.

"You know my name, and I know yours. I think we can dispense with further formalities under the circumstances – or perhaps you will look after the social observances, Dicky, and introduce me to this lady."

Dicky did so most gravely.

"Miss Crane, this is Uncle Barton's nephew, Cousin Gerald; Cousin Gerald, this is my new governess, Miss Crane."

Gerald Arkel jumped up, swung off his cap, and made a bow. There was a very keen admiration in his eye as he looked at Miriam. Indeed, so marked was his stare that she became a trifle uneasy, the more so when he observed that her face was familiar.

"Surely I have seen you before," he said with a puzzled look.

"Oh, no," Miriam forced herself to say. "I don't think so. Are you staying in Lesser Thorpe?" she asked hurriedly, to divert his attention.

"Yes, with my uncle at the Manor House. He came out with me this morning. I left him fossiking about one of his fences. He'll be here soon."

A chuckle close at hand revealed that Mr. Barton was not only near at hand, but had been close enough to hear the entire conversation. He looked inquisitively from Miriam to his nephew. Gerald took no notice of his scrutiny, but Miriam coloured up, and lifting Dicky from her lap, rose to meet the old man. She led him aside ostensibly to show him the scene of the disaster, but in reality to ask him a question.

"Why do you look at me so, Mr. Barton? Is that – is that – "

"Yes!" Mr. Barton chuckled in his hateful manner. "Yes, that is the man – now you know."

CHAPTER III.

POVERTY HALL

What Miriam meant by her mysterious question, and what Mr. Barton meant by his mysterious answer, was known only to themselves. They seemed to understand one another without recourse to words for the situation – whatever the situation might be – adjusted itself between them on a swift interchange of glances. Mr. Barton was regarded by the parish at large as being as deep as a well; had the parish seen him with Mrs. Darrow's governess at the moment, it might have considered him even deeper. But the young man whom these glances mostly concerned, saw nothing of the by-play which was to influence his future. He chatted with Dicky, and commended him for his prowess in having run into the meadow to reconnoitre the whereabouts of the bull. Gerald knew better than to scold the boy for his folly; he knew what a sensitive, nervous child Dicky was, and chose this way of soothing him by applauding what he knew had been his intention, so that the little lad plucked up his courage, and recovered his nerve – so far as his feeble body could do so. Poor Dicky, he had a weak heart, overstrung nerves, and an injudicious mother; and between them, was fast being ruined body and soul, when Miriam came to save him. But for that strange meeting on Waterloo Bridge, Dicky's chances of life would not have been what they were. But then that same meeting is responsible for so much of moment, as will be seen hereafter – and all because Mr. Barton took one turning instead of another, and so lost himself in a fog. If ever Providence worked to great ends by small means, it was when Mr. Richard Barton, Squire of Lesser Thorpe, was made to mistake Waterloo Bridge for the Bridge of Westminster.

"I am so glad you are here again, Cousin Gerald," said Dicky, patting the young man's slim hand. "You'll tell me stories, won't you, and play cricket with me, and I've got such a jolly governess," finished Dicky incoherently.

Gerald laughed in his pleasant fashion.

"I'll tell you any amount of stories, and I'll play cricket, and I'll adore your governess, Dicky."

"Oh, you mustn't. Hilda will be so angry."

With his usual precocity, Dicky saw more than he was meant to see, and said more than he should have said. Gerald flushed somewhat, and picking up the boy placed him on his shoulder.

"You talk too much, young man," said he gaily. "Miss Crane," with an anxious look lest she should have overheard Dicky's indiscretion, "shall I carry this rascal home for you?"

"Isn't he too heavy, Mr. Arkel?"

"Heavy?" The echo came from Barton. "Why, Gerald is a champion athlete, and plays with cannonballs like feathers. He is Apollo and Hercules both in one."

"At present he is Mercury carrying a soul to the Elysian fields," cried Gerald, and strode off with Dicky, who was delighted with this classical allusion which, from that reading which Miriam so deplored, he was quite able to appreciate.

"I am Achilles! I am Ulysses!" shouted Dicky in ecstasy. "Hermes takes me to Pluto and Queen Persephone. Ai! Ai! Ai!" and Dicky lamented in classical style.

Barton looked after the pair.

"You ought to be satisfied," said he to Miriam. "He is a handsome fellow, though he is a fool."

"He neither looks like a fool, nor talks like one, Mr. Barton."

What reply the cynic would have made to this curt contradiction it is impossible to say; but at that moment a shadow fell on the grass near them. Only the shadow – the shadow of a man; yet Barton whipped round with the sudden snarl of a startled wild beast. His snarl was even more hateful than his chuckle, and Miriam winced as she also turned to see the substance of the shadow. Even now, well-nourished, rested, and having recovered her nerve, as she had, she still dreaded Barton. There was something so uncanny about him – something akin to the satyr – to Pan, the inspirer of causeless terrors – that she could never overcome a creeping of the flesh, a sinking of the heart when in his presence. Mr. Hyde, of fictitious fame, was not more hateful.

The new-comer was a tall lean man, so tall, so lean, that he might be defined in the terms of Euclid as a line, having length without breadth. His legs were long, his arms were long, even his head was long; and clothed in a suit of solemn black, which reflected no lustre, he came as a blot on the sunny landscape. His eyes were small and close together; they looked everywhere but at the person he was addressing, past you, about you, but never by any chance at you; and – as Miriam heard, not then, but long afterwards – he had a deep, booming, cracked voice, such as might come from a flawed and rusty bell. She did not know the man at the time; she had cause to know him later; and he always appeared in the same noiseless, stealthy, slinking way. If Barton was a rat, this man was akin to the serpent.

And the queerness of the thing was that he did not speak to Barton, nor did Barton speak to him. The two evil creatures – Miriam instinctively felt that both were evil – looked at one another; then Barton, without a word to the governess, passed away with the stranger, for all the world as if the latter were the devil come for his soul. Perhaps Miss Crane was unduly impressionable – perhaps she had not altogether recovered her state of health – but she shuddered and grew pale to the lips as those two black figures dwindled into the distance. Involuntarily she glanced at the grass as though it had been scorched by their tread. Who was the stranger? who was Barton? She knew as much about one as she did about the other.

"I must go back," she muttered, clenching her hands. "I will not bend to that man's power. It was bad in London – it is worse here. And Gerald Arkel – " her thoughts made no further use of words, and her eyes followed the stalwart figure of the young man as he bounded towards the village, evidently playing at being a horse for Dicky's greater delight. With a sigh Miriam walked rapidly after them. She did not look again in the direction of Mr. Barton and his attendant demon.