Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller Couch - Hetty Wesley

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"Of all the wet blankets--" began Hetty, but was interrupted by the
ringing of a bell in the corner above her bed. It summoned her to
run and dress Rebecca, who slept in a small room opening out of Mrs.
Grantham's.

Hetty departed in a whirl. Patty stood considering. "She never
would! 'Tis a mercy sometimes she doesn't mean all she says."

But this time Hetty meant precisely what she said. Having dressed
Rebecca, she suddenly faced upon Mrs. Grantham, who stood watching
her as she turned back the bed-clothes to air, and folded the child's
nightdress.

"With your leave, madam, I wish to go home to-day."

"Bless my soul!" ejaculated Mrs. Grantham. "You must be mad."

"I know how singular you must think it: and indeed I am very sorry to
put you out. Yet I have a particular reason for asking."

"Quite impossible, Miss Wesley."

But, as Mr. Grantham had afterwards to tell her, a householder has no
means in free England of coercing a grown woman determined to quit
the shelter of his roof and within an hour. The poor lady was
nonplussed. She had not dreamed that life's tranquil journey lay
exposed to a surprise at once so simple and so disconcerting, and in
her vexation she came near to hysterics.

"What to make of your sister, I know not," she cried, twenty minutes
later, seating herself to have her hair dressed by Patty.

"Her temper was always a little uncertain," said Patty sagely.
"I think father spoilt her by teaching her Greek and poetry and such
things."

"Greek! You don't tell me that Greek makes a person want to walk out
of a comfortable house at a moment's notice and leave my poor
darlings on the stream!"

"Oh, no," agreed Patty. "You will not allow it, of course?"

"Perhaps you'll tell me how to prevent it? In all my life I don't
remember being so much annoyed."

So Hetty had her way, packed a small bundle, and was ready at the
gate for the passing of the carrier's van which would set her down
within a mile of home. She had acted on an impulse, unreasoning, but
not to be resisted. She felt the crisis of her life approaching and
had urgent need, before it came on her, to make confession and
cleanse her soul. She knew she was hurrying towards a tempest; but,
whatever it might wreck, she panted for the clear sky beyond. In her
fever the van seemed to crawl and the miles to drag themselves out
interminably.

She was within a mile of her journey's end when a horseman met and
passed the van at a jog-trot. Hetty glanced after him, wrenched open
the door and sprang out upon the road with a cry--

"Father!"

Mr. Wesley heard her and turned his head; then reined up the filly
and came slowly back. The van was at a standstill, the driver
craning his head and staring aft in wholly ludicrous bewilderment.

"Dropped anything?" he asked, as Hetty ran to him. She thrust the
fare into his hand without answering and faced around again to meet
her father.

He came slowly, with set jaws. He offered no greeting.

"I was expecting this," he said. "Indeed, I was riding to Kelstein
to fetch you home."

"But--but why?" she stammered.

"Why?" A short savage laugh broke from him, almost like a dog's
bark; but he held his temper down. "Because I do not choose to have
a decent household infected by a daughter of mine. Because, if
sisters of yours must needs be exposed to the infection, it shall be
where I am present to watch them and control you. I have received a
letter--"

She stared at him dismayed, remembering the man Wright and his
threat.

"And upon that you judge me, without a hearing?" She let her arms
drop beside her.

"Will you deny it? Will you deny you have been in the habit of
meeting--no, I see you will not. Apparently Mrs. Grantham has
dismissed you."

"Sir, Mrs. Grantham has not dismissed me. I came away against her
wish, because--"

"Well?" he waited, chewing his wrath.

It was idle now to say she had come meaning to confess. That chance
had gone.

"I ask you to remember, sir, that I never promised not to meet him."
Since a fight it must be, she picked up all her courage for it.
"I had no right to promise it."

His mouth opened, but shut again like a trap. He had the
self-control to postpone battle. "We will see about that," he said
grimly. "Meanwhile, please you mount behind me and ride."

As they jogged towards Wroote, Hetty, holding on by her father's
coat, seemed to feel in her finger-tips the wrath pent up and working
in his small body. She was profoundly dejected; so profoundly that
she almost forgot to be indignant with William Wright; but she had no
thought of striking her colours. She built some hope upon Sam, too.
Sam might not take her part openly, but he at least had always been
kind to her.

"Does Sam know?" she took heart to ask as they came in sight of the
parsonage.

"Sam?"

"Patty tells me he is here with his wife and little Philly."

"I am glad to say that Patty is mistaken. They took their departure
yesterday."

CHAPTER VI.

"Oh, Hetty!" was all Molly could find to say, rushing into the back
garret where Hetty stood alone, and clinging to her with a long kiss.

Hetty held the dear deformed body against her bosom for a while, then
relaxing her arms, turned towards the small window in the eaves.
"My dear," she answered with a wry smile, "it had to come, you see,
and now we must go through with it."

"But who could have written that wicked letter? Mother will not tell
us--even if she knows, which I doubt."

"I fancy I know. And you must not exaggerate, even in your love for
me. I don't suppose the letter was wicked, though it may have been
spiteful."

"It accused you of the most dreadful things."

"If it be dreadful to meet the man you love, and in secret, then I
have been behaving dreadfully."

"O-oh!"

"And that is just what I came home to confess." She paused at the
sight of Molly's face. "What! are you against me too? Then I must
fight this out alone, it seems."

"Darling Hetty, you must not--ah, don't look so at me!"

But Hetty turned her back. "Please leave me."

"If you had only written--"

"That would take long to explain. I am tired, and it is not worth
while; please leave me."

"But you do not understand. I had to come, although for the time
father has forbidden us to speak with you--"

Hetty stepped to the door and held it open. "Then one of his
daughters at any rate shall be dutiful," she said.

Molly flung her an imploring look and walked out, sobbing.

"Is Hetty not coming down to supper?" Emilia asked in the kitchen
that evening. Mrs. Wesley with her daughters and Johnny Whitelamb
supped there as a rule when not entertaining visitors. The Rector
took his meals alone, in the parlour.

"Your father has locked her in. Until to-morrow he forbids her to
have anything but bread and water," answered Mrs. Wesley.

"And she is twenty-seven years old," added Molly.

All looked at her; even Johnny Whitelamb looked, with a face as long
as a fiddle. The comment was quiet, but the note of scorn in it
could not be mistaken. Molly in revolt! Molly, of all persons!
Molly sat trembling. She knew that among them all Johnny was her one
ally--and a hopelessly distressed and ineffective one. He had turned
his head quickly and leaned forward, blinking and spreading his
hands--though the season was high summer--to the cold embers of the
kitchen fire; his heart torn between adoration of Hetty and the old
dog-like worship of his master.

"Molly dear, she has deceived him and us all," was Mrs. Wesley's
reproof, unexpectedly gentle.

"For my part," put in Nancy comfortably, "I don't suppose she would
care to come down. And 'tis cosy to be back in the kitchen again,
after ten days of the parlour and Mrs. Sam. Emmy agrees, I know."

But Emmy with fine composure put aside this allusion to her pet foe.
"Molly and Johnny should make a match of it," she sneered.
"They might set up house on their belief in Hetty, and even take her
to lodge with them."

John Whitelamb sprang up as if stung; stood for a moment, still with
his face averted upon the fire; then, while all stared at him, let
drop the arm he had half-lifted towards the mantel-shelf and relapsed
into his chair. He had not uttered a sound.

Mrs. Wesley had a reproof upon her tongue, and this time a sharp one.
She was prevented, however, by Molly, who rose to her feet, tottered
to the door as if wounded, and escaped from the kitchen.

Molly mounted the stairs with bowed head, dragging herself at each
step by the handrail. Reaching the garrets, she paused by Hetty's
door to listen. No light pierced the chinks; within was silence.
She crept away to her room, undressed, and lay down, sobbing quietly.

Her sobs ceased, but she could not sleep. A full moon strained its
rays through the tattered curtain, and as it climbed, she watched the
panel of light on the wall opposite steal down past a text above the
washstand, past the washstand itself, to the bare flooring. "God is
love" said the text, and Molly had paid a pedlar twopence for it,
years before, at Epworth fair--quite unaware that she was purchasing
the Wesley family motto. She heard her mother and sisters below bid
one another good night and mount to their rooms. An hour later her
father went his round, locking up. Then came silence.

Suddenly she sat up in her bed. She had heard--yes, surely--Hetty's
voice. It seemed to come from outside, close below her window--
Hetty's ordinary voice, with no distress in it, speaking some words
she could not catch. She listened. Actual sound or illusion, it was
not repeated. She climbed out of bed and drew the curtain aside.
Bright moonlight lay spread all about the house and, beyond, the
fenland faded away to an unseen horizon as through veils of gold and
silver, asleep, no creature stirring on the face of it.

She let drop the corner of the curtain and on the instant caught it
back again. A dark form, quick and noiseless, slipped past the
shadow by the yard-gate. It was Rag the mastiff, left unchained at
night: and as he padded across the yard in the full moonlight, Molly
saw that he was wagging his tail.

She watched him to his kennel; stepped to her door, lifted the latch
cautiously and stole once more along the passage to Hetty's room.

"Hetty!" she whispered. "Hetty dear! Were you calling? Is anything
wrong?" She shook the door gently. No answer came. Mr. Wesley had
left the key in the lock after turning it on the outside: and still
whispering to her sister, Molly wrenched it round, little by little.
No one stirred below-stairs: no one answered within. She pushed the
door open an inch or two, then wider, pausing as it creaked.
A draught of the warm night wind met her as she slipped into the
room, and--her fingers trembling and missing their hold--the door
fell to behind her, almost with a slam.

She stood still, her heart in her mouth. In her ears the noise was
loud enough to awake the house. But as the seconds dragged by and
still no sound came from her father's room, "Hetty!" she whispered
again.

Her eyes were on the bed as she whispered it, and in the pale light
the bed was patently empty. Still she did not comprehend. Her eyes
wandered from it to the open window.

When she spoke again it was with the same low whisper, but a whisper
which broke as she breathed it to follow where it might not reach.

"What have they done to you? My darling, God watch over you now!"

She crept back to her room and lay shivering, waiting for the dawn.

BOOK III.

PROLOGUE.

In a chilly dawn, high among the mountains to the north of Berar, two
Britons were wandering with an Indian attendant. They came like
spectres, in curling wreaths of mist that magnified their stature;
and daylight cowed each with the first glimpse of his comrade's face,
yellow with hunger and glassy-eyed with lack of sleep. They were, in
fact, hopelessly lost. They had spent the night huddled together on
a narrow ledge, listening hour by hour to the sound of water tumbling
over unknown precipices; and now they moved with painful cramped
limbs, yet listlessly, being past hope to escape or to see another
dawn.

The elder Briton was a Scotsman, aged fifty or thereabouts, a clerk
of the H.E.I.C.; the younger an Englishman barely turned twenty, an
officer in the same company's service. They hailed from Surat, and
had arrived in Berar on a trade mission with an escort of fifty men,
of whom their present attendant, Bhagwan Dass, was the solitary
survivor; and this came of believing that a "protection" from the
Nizam would carry them anywhere in the Nizam's supposed dominions,
whereas the _de facto_ rulers of Berar were certain Mahratta
chieftains who collected its taxes and who had politely forwarded the
mission into the fastnesses of the mountains. There, at the ripe
moment, the massacre had taken place, Mr. Menzies and young Prior
escaping on their hill-ponies, with Bhagwan Dass clutching at Prior's
stirrup-leather. The massacre having been timed a little before
nightfall, darkness helped them to get clear away; but Menzies, by
over-riding his little mare, flung her, an hour later, with a broken
fetlock, and Prior's pony being all but dead-beat, they abandoned the
poor brutes on the mountain-side, took to their feet and stumbled on
until the setting of the young moon. With the first light of dawn
they had roused themselves to start anew, lingering out the agony:
for the slopes below swarmed with enemies in chase, and even if a
village lurked in these heights the inhabitants would give no help,
being afraid of their Mahratta masters.

They had crossed a gully through which a mountain runlet descended,
unrolling a ribbon of green mossy herbage on its way, and slipping
out of sight over the edge of a precipice of two hundred feet or so.
Beyond this the eye saw nothing but clouds of mist heaving and
smoking to the very lip of the fall. Young Prior halted for a moment
on the farther slope to take breath, and precisely at that moment
something happened which he lived to relate a hundred times and
always with wonder. For as his eye fell on these clouds of mist, a
beam of light came travelling swiftly down the mountain and pierced
them, turning them to a fierce blood-red; next, almost with an
audible rush, the sun leapt into view over the eastern spurs: and
while he stared down upon the vapours writhing and bleeding under
this lance-thrust of dawn--while they shook themselves loose and
trailed away in wreaths of crimson and gold and violet, and deep in
the chasms between them shone the plain with its tilled fields and
villages--a cry from Bhagwan Dass fetched him round sharply, and he
beheld, a few yards above him on the slope, a man.

The man sat, naked to the waist, at the entrance of a low cave or
opening in the hillside. He seemed to be of great age, with a calm
and almost unwrinkled face and gray locks falling to his shoulders,
around which hung a rosary of black beads, very highly polished and
flashing against the sun. From the waist down he was wrapped in a
bright yellow shawl, and beside him lay a crutch and a wooden bowl
heaped with rice and conserves.

Before the two Britons could master their dismay, Bhagwan Dass had
run towards the cave and was imploring the holy man to give them
shelter and hiding. For a while he listened merely, and his first
response was to lift the bowl and invite them with a gesture to stay
their hunger. Famished though they were, they hesitated, and reading
the reason in their eyes, he spoke for the first time.

"It will not harm you," said he in Hindustani: "and the villagers
below bring me more than I can eat."

From the moment of setting eyes on him--Prior used to declare--a
blessed sense of protection fell upon the party; a feeling that in
the hour of extreme need God had suddenly put out a shield, under the
shadow of which they might rest in perfect confidence. And indeed,
though they knew the mountain to be swarming with their enemies, they
entered the cave and slept all that day like children. Whether or no
meanwhile their enemies drew near they never discovered: but Prior,
awaking towards nightfall, saw the hermit still seated at the
entrance as they had found him, and lay for a while listening to the
click of his rosary as he told bead after bead.

He must, however, have held some communication with the unseen
village in the valley: for three bowls of milk and rice stood ready
for them. They supped, forbearing--upon Bhagwan Dass's advice--to
question him, though eager to know if he had a mind to help them
further, and how he might contrive it. Until moonrise he gave no
sign at all; then rising gravely, crutch and bowl in hand, stepped a
pace or two beyond the entrance and whistled twice--as they supposed
for a guide. But the only guides that answered were two small
mountain foxes--a vixen and her half-grown cub--that came bounding
around an angle of the rock and fawned about his feet while he
caressed them and spoke to them softly in a tongue which none of the
party understood. And so they all set out, turning their faces
westward and keeping to the upper ridges; the foxes trotting always a
few paces ahead and showing the way.

All that night they walked as in a dream, and came at daybreak to a
ledge with a shrine upon it, and in the shrine a stone figure of a
goddess, and below the ledge--perhaps half a mile below it--a village
clinging dizzily to the mountain-side.--There was no food in the
shrine, only a few withered wreaths of marigolds: but the holy man
must have spoken to his foxes, for at dawn a priest came toiling up
the slope with a filled bowl so ample that his two arms scarcely
embraced it. The priest set down the food, took the hermit's
blessing and departed in silence: and this was the only human
creature they saw on their journey. Not for all their solicitation
would the hermit join them in eating: and at this they marvelled most
of all: for he had walked far and moderately fast, yet seemed to feel
less fatigue than any of them. That night, as soon as the moon rose,
he started afresh with the same long easy stride, and the foxes led
the way as before.

The dawn rose, but this time he gave no signal for halting: and the
cool of morning was almost ended when he led them out through the
last broken crests of the ridge and, pointing to a broad plain at
their feet, told them that henceforward they might fare in safety.
A broad road traversed the plain, and beside it, some ten to twelve
miles from the base of the foothills, twinkled the white walls of a
rest-house.

"There," said he, pointing, "either to-day or to-morrow will pass the
trader Afzul Khan: and if indeed ye come from Surat--"

His mild eyes, as he pointed, were turned upon Menzies, who broke out
in amazement: "For certain Afzul Khan is known to us, as debtor
should be to creditor. But how knowest _thou_ either that he passes
this way or that we come from Surat?"

"It is enough that I know."

"Either come with us then," Menzies pressed him, "and at the
rest-house Afzul Khan shall fill thy bowl with gold-dust; or remain
here, and I will send him."

"Why should he do aught so witless?"

Menzies laughed awkwardly. "Though money be useless to thee, holy
man, I dare say thy villagers might be the gladder for it."

The hermit shook his head.

"Anyhow," broke in Prior, addressing Menzies in English, "we must do
_something_ for him, if only in justice to some folks who will be
glad enough to see us back alive."

"My friend here," Menzies interpreted, "has parents living, and is
their only son. For me, I have a wife and three children. For their
sakes, therefore--"

But the hermit put up a hand. "Something I did for their sakes,
giving you back to the chains they will hang upon you. It was
weakness in me, and no cause for thanks." He turned his begging bowl
so that it shone in the sun: an ant clung to it, crawling on its
polished side. "If ye have sons, I may live belike to see them pass
my way."

"That is not likely."

"Who knows?" The old man's eyes rested on Bhagwan Dass.
"Unlikelier things have befallen me while I sat yonder. See--" he
turned the bowl in his hand and nodded towards the ant running hither
and thither upon it. "What happens to him that would not likewise
happen if he stood still?"

"There is food at the rest-house," Menzies persisted; "but I take it
you can find food on your way back, even though since starting we
have seen none pass your lips: and that is two days."

"It will be yet two days before I feast again: for I drink not save
of the spring by which you found me, and I eat no food the taste of
which I cannot wash from me in its water."

Menzies and Prior eyed one another. "Cracked as an old bell!" said
the younger man in English, and laughed.

"Is it a vow?" Menzies asked.

"It is a vow."

"But tell me," put in Prior, "does the water of your spring differ
from that of a thousand others on these hills?"

"The younger sahib," answered the hermit, "understands not the
meaning of a vow; which a man makes to his own hurt, perhaps, or to
the hurt of another, or it may even be quite foolishly; but thereby
he stablishes his life, while the days of other men go by in a flux
of business. As for the water of my hillside," he went on with a
sharp change of voice and speaking, to their amazement, in English,
"have not your countrymen, O sahibs, their particular springs?
Churchman and Dissenter, Presbyterian and Baptist--count they not
every Jordan above Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus?"

He turned and walked swiftly from them, mounting the slope with swift
loose strides. But while they stared, Bhagwan Dass broke from them
and ran in pursuit.

"Not without thy blessing! O Annesley sahib, go not before thou hast
blessed me!"

Two days later, at sunset, a child watching a little below the
hermit's spring saw him limp back to it and drink and seat himself
again at the entrance of the cave; and pelted down to the village
with the news. And the hill-people, who had supposed him gone for
ever, swarmed up and about the cave to assure themselves.

"Alas!" said the holy man, gazing out upon the twilight when at
length all had departed, leaving him in peace. "Cannot a man be
anywhere alone with God? And yet," he added, "I was something
wistful for their love."

CHAPTER I.

"_To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness, though we have
rebelled against him: neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord
our God, to walk in his laws which he set before us. O Lord, correct
me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to
nothing_."

The voice travelled down the great nave of Lincoln Cathedral, and, as
it came, the few morning worshippers--it was a week-day--inclined
their faces upwards: for it seemed to pause and float overhead and
again be carried forward by its own impulse, a pure column of sound
wavering awhile before it broke and spread and dissolved into
whispers among the multitudinous arches. To a woman still kneeling
by a pillar close within the western doorway it was as the voice of a
seraph speaking with the dawn, fresh from his night-watch over earth.
She had been kneeling for minutes, and still knelt, but she could not
pray. She had no business to be there. To her the sentences carried
no message; but the voice smiting, pure and cold, across the hot
confusion in her brain, steadied her while it terrified.

Yet she knew the voice well enough. It was but John Romley's.
The Dean and Chapter wanted a precentor, and among a score of
candidates had selected Romley and two others for further trial.
This was his chance and he was using it; making the most of it, too,
to the mingled admiration and disgust of his rivals listening in the
choir beside him.

And she had dressed early and climbed to the cathedral, not to pray,
but to seek Romley because she had instant need of him; because,
though she respected his character very little, he was the one man in
the world who could help her. She had missed him at the door.
Entering, she learned from a verger that he was already robing.
Then the great organ sounded, and from habit she dropped on her
knees.

John Romley, unseen in the choir, was something very different from
John Romley in private life with his loose face and flabby handshake.
Old Mr. Wesley had once dismissed him contemptuously as _vox et
praeterea nihil_: but disembodied thus, almost a thing celestial, yet
subtly recalling home to her and ties renounced, the voice shook
Hetty's soul. For it came on her as the second shock of an ambush.
She had climbed to the cathedral with but half of her senses awake,
drowsed by love, by the long ride in the languorous night wind, by
the exhaustion of a long struggle ended, by her wondering
helplessness on arriving--the chill sunlight, the deserted street,
the strange voice behind the lodging-house door, the unfamiliar
passage and stairs. She had lived a lifetime in those hours, and for
the while Wroote Parsonage lay remote as a painful daily round from
the dream which follows it. Only the practical instinct, as it were
a nerve in the centre of her brain, awake and refusing to be drugged,
had kept sounding its alarm to rise and seek Romley; and though at
length she obeyed in a panic, she went as one walking in sleep.
The front of the cathedral, as she came beneath its shadow, overhung
her as a phantom drawn upon the morning sky, its tall towers
unsubstantial, trembling against the light, but harmless even should
they fall upon her. She entered as one might pass through a paper
screen.

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