Johnny Ludlow Fourth Series Part 86

"Well, look here, Mrs. Preen," said he. "Some of us are going to fish in the long pond on Mr. Jacobson's grounds to-morrow: tell Mr. Hyde that if he would like to join us, I shall be happy to see him. Breakfast, half-past eight o'clock; sharp."

In turning out beyond the garden, I could not help noticing how pretty and romantic was the scene. A good many trees grew about that part, thick enough almost for a wood in places; and the light and shade, cast by the moon on the gra.s.s amidst them, had quite a weird appearance. It was a bright night; the moon high in the sky.

"Is that Hyde?" cried Tod.

Halting for a moment in doubt, he peered out over the field to the distance. Some one was leisurely pacing under the opposite trees. _Two_ people, I thought: but they were completely in the shade.

"I think it is Hyde, Tod. Somebody is with him."

"Just wait another instant, lad, and they'll be in that patch of moonlight by the turning."

But they did not go into that patch of moonlight. Just before they reached it (and the two figures were plain enough now) they turned back again and took the narrow inlet that led to Oxlip Dell. Whoever it was with Hyde had a hooded cloak on. Was it a red one? Tod laughed.

"Oh, by George, here's fun! He has got Kettie out for a moonlight stroll. Let's go and ask them how they enjoy it."

"Hyde might not like us to."

"There you are again, Johnny, with your queer scruples! Stuff and nonsense! Stockhausen can't have anything to say to Kettie that all the world may not hear. I want to tell him about to-morrow."

Tod made off across the gra.s.s for the inlet, I after him. Yes, there they were, promenading Oxlip Dell in the flickering light, now in the shade, now in the brightest of the moonbeams; Hyde's arm hugging her red cloak.

Tod gave a grunt of displeasure. "Stockhausen must be doing it for pastime," he said; "but he ought not to be so thoughtless. Ketira the gipsy would give the girl a shaking if she knew: she----"

The words came to an abrupt ending. There stood Ketira herself.

She was at the extreme end of the inlet amid the trees, holding on by the trunk of one, round which her head was cautiously pushed to view the promenaders. Comparatively speaking, it was dark just here; but I could see the strangely-wild look in the gipsy's eyes: the woe-begone expression of her remarkable face.

"It is coming," she said, apparently in answer to Tod's remarks, which she could not have failed to hear. "It is coming quickly."

"What is coming?" I asked.

"The fate in store for her. And it's worse than death."

"If you don't like her to walk out by moonlight, why not keep her in?--not that there can be any harm in it," interposed Tod. "If you don't approve of her being friendly with Hyde Stockhausen," he went on after a pause, for Ketira made no answer, "why don't you put a stop to it?"

"Because she has her mother's spirit and her mother's _will_" cried Ketira. "And she likes to have her own way: and I fear, woe's me! that if I forced her to mine, things might become worse than they are even now: that she might take some fatal step."

"I am going home," said Tod at this juncture, perhaps fancying the matter was getting complicated: and, of all things, he hated complications. "Good-night, old lady. We heard you were in bed with rheumatism."

He set off back, up the narrow inlet. I said I'd catch him up: and stayed behind for a last word with Ketira.

"What did you mean by a fatal step?"

"That she might leave me and seek the protection of the Tribe. We have had words about this. Kettie says little, but I see the signs of determination in her silent face. 'I will not have you meet or speak to that man,' I said to her this morning--for she was out with him last evening also. She made me no reply: but--you see--how she has obeyed!

Her heart's life has been awakened, and by _him_. There's only one object to whom she clings now in all the whole earth; and that is to him. I am nothing."

"He will not bring any great harm upon her: you need not fear that of Hyde Stockhausen."

"Did I say he would?" she answered fiercely, her black eyes glaring and gleaming. "But he will bring _sorrow_ on her and rend her heart-strings.

A man's fancies are light as the summer wind, fickle as the ocean waves: but when a woman loves it is for life; sometimes for death."

Hyde and Kettie had disappeared at the upper end of the dell, taking the way that in a minute or two would bring them out in the open fields.

Ketira turned back along the narrow path, and I with her.

"I knew he would bring some ill upon me, that first moment when I saw him on Worcester race-ground," resumed Ketira in a low tone of pain.

"Instinct warned me that he was an enemy. And what ill can be like that of stealing my young child's heart! Once a girl's heart is taken--and taken but to be toyed with, to be flung back at will--her day-dreams in this life are over."

Emerging into the open ground, the first thing we saw was the pair of lovers about to part. They were standing face to face: Hyde held both her hands while speaking his last words, and then bent suddenly down, as if to whisper them. Ketira gave a sharp cry at that, perhaps she fancied he was stealing a kiss, and lifted her right hand menacingly. The girl ran swiftly in the direction of her home--which was not far off--and Hyde strode, not much less quickly, towards his. Ketira stood as still as a stone image, watching him till he disappeared within his gate.

"There's no harm in it," I persuasively said, sorry to see her so full of trouble. But she was as one who heard not.

"No harm at all, Ketira. I dare answer for it that a score of lads and la.s.ses are out. Why should we not walk in the moonlight as well as the sunlight? For my part, I should call it a shame to stay indoors on this glorious night."

"An enemy, an enemy! A grand gentleman, who will leave her to pine her heart away! What kind of man is he, that Hyde Stockhausen?" she continued, turning to me fiercely.

"Kind of man? A pleasant one. I have not heard any ill of him."

"Rich?"

"No. Perhaps he will be rich some time. He makes bricks, you know, now.

That is, he superintends the men."

"Yes, I know," she answered: and I don't suppose there was much connected with Hyde she did not know. Looking this way, looking that, she at length began to walk, slowly and painfully, towards Hyde's gate.

The thought had crossed me--why did she not take Kettie away on one of their long expeditions, if she dreaded him so much. But the rheumatism lay upon her still too heavily.

Flinging open the gate, she went across the garden, not making for the proper entrance, but for a lighted room, whose French-window stood open to the ground. Hyde was there, just sitting down to supper.

"Come in with me," she said, turning her head round to beckon me on.

But I did not choose to go in. It was no affair of mine that I should beard Hyde in his den. Very astonished indeed must he have been, when she glided in at the window, and stood before him. I saw him rise from his chair; I saw the astounded look of old Deborah Preen when she came in with his supper ale in a jug.

What they said to one another, I know not. I did not wish to listen: though it was only natural I should stay to see the play out. Just as natural as it was for Preen to come stealing round through the kidney beans to the front-garden, an anxious look on her face.

"What does that old gipsy woman want with the young master, Mr. Ludlow?

Is he having his fortune told?"

"I shouldn't wonder. Wish some good genius would tell mine!"

The interview seemed to have been short and sharp. Ketira was coming out again. Hyde followed her to the window. Both were talking at once, and the tail of the dispute reached our ears.

"I repeat to you that you are totally mistaken," Hyde was saying. "I have no 'designs,' as you put it, on your daughter, good or bad; no design whatever. She is perfectly free to go her own way, for me. My good woman, you have no cause to adjure me in that solemn manner.

Sacred? 'Under Heaven's protection?' Well, so she may be. I hope she is.

Why should I wish to hinder it? I don't wish to, I don't intend to. You need not glare so."

Ketira, outside the window now, turned and faced him, her great eyes fixed on him, her hand raised in menace.

"Do not forget that. I have warned you, Hyde Stockhausen. By the Great Power that regulates all things, human and divine, I affirm that I speak the truth. If harm in any shape or of any kind comes to my child, my dear one, my only one, through you, it will cost you more than you would now care to have foretold."

"Bless my heart!" faintly e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed old Preen. And she drew away, and backed for shelter into the bean rows.