Shrewsbury: A Romance

"But-if you feel that way, why do his bidding yourself?" I answered, doubting all this might be a trap of that cunning devil's. "If I sneak and spy, who spies on me, miss?"

"I do," she said, leaning against the wall of Bedford Garden, where one of Heming's new lights, set up at the next corner, shone full on her face. "And I am weary of it."

"But if you are weary of it-"

"If I am weary of it, why don't I free myself instead of preaching to you?" she answered. "First, because I am a woman, Mr. Wiseman."

"I don't see what that has to do with it," I retorted.

"Don't you?" she answered bitterly. "Then I will tell you. My uncle feeds me, clothes me, gives me a roof-and sometimes beats me. If I run away as I bid you run away, where shall I find board and lodging, or anything but the beating? A man comes and goes; a woman, if she has not someone to answer for her, must to the Justice and then to the Round-house and be set to beating hemp; and her shoulders smarting to boot. Can I get service without a character?"

"No," I said, "that is true."

"Or travel without money?"

"No."

"Or alone-except to Whetstone Park?"

"No."

"Well, it is fine to be a man then," she answered, leaning her little shawled head farther and farther back against the wall, and slowly moving it to and fro, while she looked at me from under her eyelashes, "for he can do all. And take a woman with him."

I started at that, and stared at her, and saw a little colour come into her pale face. But her eyes, far from falling under my gaze, met my eyes with a bold, mischievous look; that gradually, and as she still moved her head to and fro, melted into a smile.

It was impossible to mistake her meaning, and I felt a thrill run through me, such as I had not known for ten years. "Oh," I said at last, and awkwardly, "I see now."

"You would have seen long ago if you had not been a fool," she answered. And then, as if to excuse herself she added-but this I did not understand-"Not that fine feathers make fine birds-I am not such a fool myself, as to think that. But-"

"But what?" I said, my face warm.

"I am a fool all the same."

Her eyes falling with that, and her pale face growing to a deeper colour, I had no doubt of the main thing, though I could not follow her precise drift. And I take it, there are few men who, upon such an invitation, however veiled, would not respond. Accordingly I took a step towards the girl, and went, though clumsily, to put my arm round her.

But she pushed me off with a vigour that surprised me; and she mocked me with a face between mischief and triumph; a face that was more like a mutinous boy's than a girl's. "Oh, no," she said. "There is a good deal between this and that, Mr. Price."

"How?" I said shamefacedly.

"Do you go?" she asked sharply. "Is it settled? That first of all, if you please."

As to the going-somewhere-I had made up my mind long ago; before I met her, or went into the Seven Stars, or knew that a dozen mad topers were roaring treason about the town, and bidding fair to hang us all. But being of a cautious temper, and seeing conditions which I had not contemplated added to the bargain, and having besides a shrewd idea that I could not afterwards withdraw, I hesitated. "It is dangerous!" I said.

"I will tell you what is dangerous," she answered, wrathfully, showing her little white teeth as she flashed her eyes at me, "and that is to be where we are. Do you know what they are doing there-in that house?" And she pointed towards the Market, whence we had come.

"No," I said reluctantly, wishing she would say no more.

"Killing the King," she answered in a low voice. "It is for Saturday, or Saturday week. He is to be stopped in his coach as he comes from hunting-in the lane between Turnham Green and the river. You can count their chances. They are merry plotters! And now-now," she continued, "do you know where you stand, Mr. Price, and whether it is dangerous?"

"I know" – I said, trembling at that bloody design, which no whit surprised me since everything I had heard corroborated it-"I know what I have to do."

"What?" she said.

"Go straight to the Secretary's office," I said, "and tell him. Tell him!"

"You won't do it," she answered, "or, at least, I won't."

"Why?" I asked, atremble with excitement.

"Why?" she echoed, mocking me; and I noticed that not only were her eyes bright, but her lips red. "Why, firstly, Mr. Price, because I want to have done with plots and live honestly; and that is not to be done on blood-money. And secondly, because it is dangerous-as you call it. Do you want to be an evidence, set up for all to point at, and six months after to be decoyed to Wapping, dropped into a dark hold, and carried over to France?"

"God forbid!" I said, aghast at this view of things.

"Then have done with informing," she answered, with a little spurt of heat. "Or let be, at any rate, until we are safe ourselves and snug in the country. Then if you choose, and you do nothing to hurt my uncle-for I will not have him touched-we may talk of it. But not for money."

Those words "safe and snug," telling of a prospect that at that moment seemed of all others the most desirable in the world, dwelt so lovingly on my ear, that in place of hesitation I felt only eagerness and haste.

"I will go!" I said.

"You will?" she said.

"Yes," I answered.

"And-"

"And what?" I said, wondering.

She hesitated a moment, and then, "That is for you to say," she replied, lowering her eyes.

It is possible that I might not have understood her, even then, if I had not marked her face, and seen that her lips were quivering with a sudden shyness, which words and manner in vain belied. She blushed, and trembled; and, lowering her eyes, drew forward the shawl that covered her head, the street-urchin gone out of her. And I, seeing and understanding, had other and new thoughts of her which remained with me. "If you mean that," I said, clumsily, "I will make you my wife-if you will let me."

"Well, we'll see about it, when we get to Romford," she answered, looking nervously aside, and plucking at the fringe of the shawl. "We have to escape first. And now-listen," she continued, rapidly, and in her ordinary voice. "My uncle is removing to-morrow to another hiding-place, and I go first with some clothes and baggage. He will not flit himself till it is dark. Do you put your trunk outside your door, and I will take it and send it by the Chelmsford waggon. At noon meet me at Clerkenwell Gate, and we will walk to Romford and hide there until we know how things are going."

"Why Romford?" I said.

"Why anywhere?" she answered, impatiently.

That was true enough; and seeing in what mood she was, and that out of sheer contrariness she was inclined to be the more shrewish now, because she had melted to me a moment before, I refrained from asking farther questions; listening instead to her minute directions, which were given with as much clearness and perspicuity as if she had dwelt on this escape for a twelvemonth past. It was plain, indeed, that she had not fetched and carried for the famous Ferguson for nothing; nor watched his methods to little purpose. Nor was this all: mingled with this display of precocious skill there constantly appeared a touch of malice and mischief, more natural in a boy than a girl, and seldom found even in boys, where the gutter has not served for a school. And through this again, as through the folds of a shifting gauze, appeared that which gradually and as I listened took more and more a hold on me-the woman.

Yet I suppose that there never was a stranger love-making in the world; if love-making that could be called wherein one at least of us had in mind ten thoughts of fear and death for one of happiness or love; and a pulse attuned rather to the dreary drip of the wet eaves about us, and the monotonous yelp of a cur chained among the stalls, than to the flutter of desire.

And yet, when, our plan agreed upon, and the details settled, we turned homewards and went together through the streets, I could not refrain from glancing at my companion from time to time, in doubt and almost incredulity. When the dream refused to melt, when I found her still moving at my elbow, her small shawled head on a level with my shoulder-when, I say, I found her so, not love, but a sense of companionship and a feeling of gratulation that I was no longer alone, stole for the first time into my mind and comforted me. I had gone so many years through these streets solus et caelebs, that I pricked my ears and pinched myself in sheer astonishment at finding another beside me and other feet keeping time with mine; nor knew whether to be more confounded or relieved by the thought that of all persons' interests her interests marched with mine.

CHAPTER XX

The clocks had gone midnight, when I parted from Mary at the door of the house and groped my way upstairs to my room; where, throwing off my clothes I lay down, not to sleep, but to resolve endlessly and futilely the plans we had made, and the risks we ran and the thousand issues that might come of either. Cogitation brought me no nearer to a knowledge of the event, but only heated my brain and increased my impatience; the latter to such a degree that with the first light I was up and moving, and had my trunk packed. Nor did I fail to note the strange and almost incredible turn which now led me to look for support in my flight to the very person whose ominous entrance twenty-four hours earlier had forced me to lay aside the thought.

Long before it could by any chance be necessary I opened my door, and softly carrying out my box, placed it in a dark corner on the landing. After this a great interval elapsed, during which I conjured up a hundred mischances. At length I heard someone afoot opposite; and then the stumbling tread of a porter carrying goods down the stairs. About eleven I ventured to peep out, and learned with satisfaction that the trunk had vanished; it remained therefore for me to do the same. Bestowing a last look on the little attic which had been my home so long, and until lately no unhappy home, I took up my hat and cloak; and making sure for the fiftieth time that I had my small stock of money, hidden in my clothes, I opened the door, and stealing out, stood a minute to listen before I descended.