Starvecrow Farm Part 1

Starvecrow Farm.

by Stanley J. Weyman.

CHAPTER I

ACROSS THE QUICKSANDS

A head appeared at either window of the postchaise. Henrietta looked forward. Her lover looked back.

The postchaise had nearly cleared the sands. Behind it the low line of Lancas.h.i.+re coast was fading from sight. Before it the long green hill of Cartmel had risen so high and drawn so near as to hide the Furness fells. On the left, seaward, a waste of sullen shallows and quaking sands still stretched to infinity--a thing to shudder at. But the savage head of Warton Crag, that for a full hour had guarded the travellers' right, had given place to the gentler outlines of Armside Knot. The dreaded Lancas.h.i.+re Channels had been pa.s.sed in safety, and the mounted guide, whose task it was to lead wayfarers over these syrtes, and who enjoyed as guerdon the life-rent of a snug farm under Cark, no longer eyed the west with anxiety, but plashed in stolid silence towards his evening meal.

And all was well. But the margin of safety had not been large--the postboys' boots still dripped, and the floor of the carriage was damp.

Seaward the pale line of the tide, which would presently sweep in one foaming wave across the flat, and in an instant cover it half a foot deep, was fretting abreast the point. Ten minutes later had been too late; and the face of Henrietta's lover, whom a few hours and a Scotch minister were to make her husband, betrayed his knowledge of the fact.

He looked backward and westward over the dreary flat; and fascinated, seized, possessed by the scene, he shuddered--perhaps at his own thoughts. He would fain have bidden the postboys hasten, but he was ashamed to give the order before her. Halfway across he had set down the uneasiness he could not hide to the fear of pursuit, to the fear of separation. But he could no longer do this; for it was plain to a child that neither horse nor man would cross Cartmel sands until the tide that was beginning to run had ebbed again.

And Henrietta looked forward. The dull grey line of coast, quickly pa.s.sing into the invisible, on which she turned her back, stood for her past; the sun-kissed peaks and blue distances of Furness, which her fancy still mirrored, though the Cartmel sh.o.r.e now hid them, stood for the future. To those heights, beautified by haze and distance, her heart went out, finding in them the true image of the coming life, the true foretype of those joys, tender and mysterious, to which she was hastening. The past, which she was abandoning, she knew: a cold home in the house of an unfeeling sister-in-law and a brother who when he was not hunting was tipsy--that, and the prospect of an unlovely marriage with a man who--horror!--had had one wife already, stood for the past. The future she did not know; but hope painted it from her brightest palette, and the girl's eyes filled, her lips quivered, her heart strained towards the sympathy and love that were henceforth to be hers--towards the happiness which she had set out to seek, and that now for certain could not escape her. As the postchaise lumbered heavily up the rough-paved groyne that led from the sands she shook from head to foot. At last her feet were set upon the land beautiful.

And save for the compact which her self-respect had imposed upon her companion, she must have given way, she must have opened all her heart, thrown herself upon his breast and wept tears of tender antic.i.p.ation.

She controlled herself. As it happened, they drew in their heads at the same time, and his eyes--they were handsome eyes--met hers.

"Dearest!" he said.

"We are safe now?"

"Safe from pursuit. But I am not safe."

"Not safe?"

"From your cruelty."

His voice was velvet; and he sought to take her hand.

But she withheld it.

"No, sir," she said, though her look was tender. "Remember our compact. You are quite sure that they will pursue us along the great road?"

"Yes, as far as Kendal. There they will learn that we are not before them--that we have somewhere turned aside. And they will turn back."

"But suppose that they drive on to Carlisle--where we rejoin the north road."

"They will not," he replied confidently. He had regained the plausible air which he had lost while the terror of the sands was upon him. "And if you fear that," he continued, "there is the other plan, and I think the better one. To-morrow at noon the packet leaves Whitehaven for Scotland, The wind is fair, and by six in the afternoon we may be ash.o.r.e, and an hour later you will be mine!" And again he sought to draw her into his arms.

But she repelled him.

"In either case," she said, her brow slightly puckered, "we must halt to-night at the inn of which you spoke."

"The inn on Windermere--yes. And we can decide there, sweet, whether we go by land or sea; whether we will rejoin the north road at Carlisle or cross from Whitehaven to"--he hesitated an instant--"to Dumfries."

She was romantic to the pitch of a day which valued sensibility more highly than sense, and which had begun to read the poetry of Byron without ceasing to read the _Mysteries of Udolpho_; and she was courageous to the point of folly. Even now laughter gleamed under her long lashes, and the bubblings of irresponsible youth were never very far from her lips. Still, with much folly, with vast recklessness and an infinitude of ignorance, she was yet no fool--though a hundred times a day she said foolish things. In the present circ.u.mstances respect for herself rather than distrust of her lover taught her that she stood on slippery ways and instilled a measure of sobriety.

"At the inn," she said, "you will put me in charge of the landlady."

And looking through the window, she carolled a verse of a song as irrelevant as snow in summer.

"But----" he paused.

"There is a landlady, I suppose?"

"Yes, but----"

"You will do what I say to-day," she replied firmly--and now the fine curves of her lips were pressed together, and she hummed no more--"if you wish me to obey you to-morrow."

"Dearest, you know----"

But she cut him short. "Please to say that it shall be so," she said.

He swore that he would obey her then and always. And bursting again into song as the carriage climbed the hill, she flung from her the mood that had for a moment possessed her, and was a child again. She made gay faces at him, each more tantalising than the other; gave him look for look, each more tender than the other; and with the tips of her dainty fingers blew him kisses in exchange for his. Her helmet-shaped bonnet, with its huge plume of feathers, lay in her lap.

The heavy coils of her fair, almost flaxen, hair were given to view, and under the fire of his flatteries the delicacy of colouring--for pallor it could scarcely be called--which so often accompanies very light hair, and was the sole defect of her beauty, gave place to blushes that fired his blood.

But he knew something of her spirit. He knew that she had it in her to turn back even now. He knew that he might cajole, but could never browbeat her. And he restrained himself the more easily, as, in spite of the pa.s.sion and eloquence--some called it vapouring--which made him a hero where thousands listened, he gave her credit for the stronger nature. He held her childishness, her frivolity, her _navete_, in contempt. Yet he could not shake off his fear of what she might do--when she knew.

[Ill.u.s.tration: They paid off the Guide under the walls of the old Priory Church at Cartmel]

They paid off the guide under the walls of the old priory church at Cartmel, with the children of the village crowding about the doors of the chaise; then with a fresh team they started up the valley that leads to the foot of Windermere lake. But now the November day was beginning to draw in. The fell on their right took gloomier shape; on their left a brook sopped its way through low marsh-covered fields; and here and there the leafless limbs of trees pointed to the grey.

And first one and then the other, with the shrill cries of moor-birds in their ears, and the fading landscape before their eyes, fell silent. Then, had they been as other lovers, had she stood more safely, or he been single-hearted, he had taken her in his arms and held her close, and comforted her, and the dusk within had been but the frame and set-off to their love.

But as it was he feared to make overtures, and they sat each in a corner until, in sheer dread of the effect which reflection might have on her, he asked her if she feared pursuit; adding, "Depend upon it, darling, you need not; Sir Charles will not give a thought to this road."

She drummed thoughtfully with her fingers on the pane.

"I am not afraid of my brother," she said.

"Then of whom?"

"Of Anthony," she answered, and corrected herself hurriedly--"of Captain Clyne, I mean. He will think of this road."

"But he will not have had the news before noon," Stewart answered. "It is eighteen miles from your brother's to the Old Hall. And besides, I thought that he did not love you."

"He does not," she rejoined, "but he loves himself. He loves his pride. And this will hit both--hard! I am not quite sure," she continued very slowly and thoughtfully, "that I am not a little sorry for him. He made so certain, you see. He thought all arranged. A week to-day was the day fixed, and--yes," impetuously, "I am sorry for him, though I hated him yesterday."

Stewart was silent a moment.

"I hate him to-day," he said.

"Why?"