For there was no room for a crinoline. Without it, her short dress at last became a long one, and she seemed slenderer than ever. She
had grown thin. I gave her stout boots to wear. Then I showed her the bags. She touched them, and shook her head.
'You've done everything,' she said. 'I should never have thought of it all. I should never have done any of it, without you.'
She held my gaze, looking grateful and sad. God knows how my face seemed. I turned away. The house was creaking, settling down as the maids went up. Then came the clock again, chiming half-past nine. She said,
'Three hours, until he comes.'
She said it in the same slow, flinching way that I had heard her say, once, 'Three weeks.'
We put the lamp out in her parlour, and stood at her window. We could not see the river, but we gazed at the wall of the park and thought of the water lying beyond it, cool and ready, waiting like us. We stood for an hour, saying almost nothing.
Sometimes she shivered. 'Are you cold?' I'd say then. But she was not cold. At last the waiting began to tell even on me, and I began to fidget. I thought I might not have packed her bags as I should have. I thought I might have left out her linen, or her jewels, or that white glove. I had put the glove in, I knew it; but I was become like her, restless as a flea. I went to her bedroom and opened the bags, leaving her at the window. I took out all the gowns and linen, and packed them again. Then, as I tightened a strap on a buckle, it broke. The leather was so old it was almost perished. I got a needle, and sewed the strap tight, in great, wild stitches. I put my mouth to the thread to bite it, and tasted salt.
Then I heard the opening of Maud's door.
My heart gave a jump. I put the bags out of sight, in the shadow of the bed, and stood and listened. No sound at all. I went to the door to the parlour, and looked inside. The window-curtains were open and let the moonlight in; but the room was empty, Maud was gone.
She had left the door ajar. I tiptoed to it and squinted into the passage. I thought there c a m e a n o t h e r n o i s e t h e n , a b o v e t h e o r d i n a r y c r e a k i n g s a n d t i c k i n g s o f t h e house— perhaps, the opening
and shutting of another door, far-off. But I couldn't be sure. I called once, in a whisper, 95
'Miss Maud!'— but even a whisper sounded loud, at Briar, and I fell silent, straining my ears, looking hard at the darkness, then walking a few steps into the passage and listening again. I put my hands together and pressed them tight, more nervous now than I can say; but I was also, to be honest, rather peeved— for wasn't it like her, to go wandering off at this late hour, without a reason or a word?
When the clock struck half-past eleven I called again, and took another couple of steps along the passage. But then my foot caught the edge of a rug, and I almost tripped. She could go this way without a candle, she knew it so well; but it was all strange to me. I didn't dare wander after her. Suppose I took a wrong turning in the dark? I might never make my way out again.
So I only waited, counting the minutes. I went back to the bedroom and brought out the bags. Then I stood at the window. The moon was full, the night was bright. The lawn lay stretched before the house, the wall at the end of it, the river beyond.
Somewhere on the water was Gentleman, coming closer as I watched. How long would he wait?
At last, when I had sweated myself into a lather, the clock struck twelve. I stood and trembled at each beating of the bell. The last one sounded, and left an echo. I thought,
'That's it.'— And, as I thought it, I heard the soft thud of her boots— she was at the door, her face pale in the darkness, her breaths coming quick as a cat's.
'Forgive me, Sue!' she said. 'I went to my uncle's library. I wanted to see it, a final time. But I couldn't go until I knew he was asleep.'
She shivered. I pictured her, pale and slight and silent, alone among those dark books.
'Never mind,' I said. 'But, we must be quick. Come here, come on.'
I gave her her cloak, and fastened up mine. She looked about her, at all she was leaving. Her teeth began to chatter. I gave her the lightest bag. Then I stood before her and put a finger to her mouth.
'Now, be steady,' I said.
All my nervousness had left me, and I was suddenly calm. I thought of my mother, and all the dark and sleeping houses she
must have stolen her way through, before they caught her. The bad blood rose in me, just like wine.
We went by the servants' stairs. I had been carefully up and down them the day before, looking for the steps that particularly creaked; now I led her over them, holding her hand, and watching where she placed her feet. At the start of the corridor where there were the doors to the kitchen and to Mrs Stiles's pantry, I made her stop and wait and listen. She kept her hand in mine. A mouse ran, quick, along the wainscot; but there was no other movement, and no sounds from anywhere. The floor had drugget on it, that softened our shoes. Only our skirts went rustle and swish.
The door to the yard was locked with a key, but the key was left in it: I drew it out before I turned it, and put a little beef fat to the bit; and then I put more fat to the bolts that fastened the door closed at the bottom and the top. I had got the fat from Mrs Cakebread's cupboard. That was sixpence less she should have from the butcher's boy!
Maud watched me laying it about the locks, with an astounded sort of look. I said softly,
96
'This is easy. If we was coming the other way, that would be hard.'
Then I gave her a wink. It was the satisfaction of the job. I really wished, just then, it had been harder. I licked my fingers clean of the fat, then put my shoulder to the door and pressed it tight into its frame: after that, the key turned smoothly and the bolts slid in their cradles, gentle as babies.
The air, outside, was cold and clear. The moon cast great black shadows. We were grateful for them. We kept to the walls of the house that were darkest, going quickly and softly from one to another and then running fast across a corner of lawn to the hedges and trees beyond. She held my hand again, and I showed her where to run.
Only once I felt her hesitate, and then I turned and found her gazing at the house, with a queer expression that seemed half- fearful and yet was almost a smile. There were no lights in the windows. No-one watched. The house looked flat, like a house in a play. I let her stand for almost a minute, then pulled her hand.
'Now you must come,' I said.
She turned her head and did not look again. We walked quickly to the wall of the park, and then we followed it, along a damp and tangled path. The bushes caught at the wool of our cloaks, and creatures leapt in the grass, or slithered before us; and there were cobwebs, fine and shining like wires of glass, that we must trample through and break. The noise seemed awful. Our breaths came harder. We walked so long, I thought we had missed the gate to the river; but then the path grew clearer, and the arch sprang up, lit bright by the moon. Maud moved past me and took out her key, and let us through it, then made the gate fast at our backs.
Now we were out of the park I breathed a little freer. We set down the bags and stood still in the darkness, in the shadow of the wall. The moon struck the rushes of the further bank, and made spears of them, with wicked points. The surface of the river seemed almost white. The only sound now was the flowing of the water, the calling of some bird; then came the splash of a fish. There was no sign of Gentleman. We had come quicker than we planned for. I listened, and heard nothing. I looked at the sky, at all the stars that were in it. More stars than seemed natural. Then I looked at Maud.
She was holding her cloak about her face, but when she saw me turn to her she reached and took my hand. She took it, not to be led by me, not to be comforted; only to hold it, because it was mine.
In the sky, a star moved, and we both turned to watch it.
'That's luck,' I said.
Then the Briar bell struck. Half-past twelve— the chime came clear across the park, I suppose the bright air made it sharper. For a second, the echo of it hung about the ear; and then above it rose another, gentler sound— we heard it, and stepped apart— it was the careful creak of oars, the slither of water against wood. About the bend of the silvery river came the dark shape of a boat. I saw the oars dip and rise, and scatter coins of moonlight; then they were drawn high, and left a silence. The boat glided towards the rushes, then rocked and creaked again as Gentleman half- rose from his seat. He could not see us, where we waited in the shadow of the wall. He could not see us; but it was not me who stepped forward
first, it was her. She went stiffly to the water's edge, then took the coil of rope he 97
threw and braced herself against the tugging of the boat, until the boat was steady.
I don't remember if Gentleman spoke. I don't believe he looked at me, except, once he had helped Maud across the ancient landing-place, to give me his hand and guide me as he had guided her, over the rotten planks. I think we did it all in silence. I know the boat was narrow, and our skirts bulged as we sat— for, when Gentleman took up the oars to turn us, we rocked again, and I grew suddenly frightened of the boat capsizing, imagining the water filling all those folds and frills and sucking us under. But Maud sat steady. I saw Gentleman looking her over. Still no-one spoke, however. We had done it all in a moment, and the boat moved quick. The stream was with us. For a minute, the river followed the wall of the park; we passed the place where I had seen him kiss her hand; then the wall snaked off. There came a line of dark trees instead.
Maud sat with her eyes on her lap, not looking.
We went very carefully. The night was so still. Gentleman kept the boat as close as he could to the shadows of the bank: only now and then, when the trees were thinner, did we move in moonlight. But there was no-one about, to watch us. Where there were houses built near to the river, they were shut up and dark. Once, when the river became broad, and there were islands, with barges moored at them, and grazing horses, he stopped the oars and let us glide in silence; but still no-one heard us pass or came to look. Then the river grew narrow again, and we moved on; and after that, there were no more houses and no more boats. There was only the darkness, the b r o k e n m o o n l i g h t , t h e c r e a k i n g o f t h e s c u l l s , t h e d i p p i n g a n d t h e r i s i n g o f Gentleman's hands and the white of his cheek above his whisker.
We did not keep upon the river for long. At a spot upon the bank, two miles from Briar, he pulled up the boat and moored it. This was where he had started from. He had left a horse there, with a lady's saddle on it. He helped us from the water, sat Maud upon the horse's back, and strapped her bags beside her. He said,
'We must go another mile or so. Maud?' She did not answer. You must be brave. We are very close now.'
Then he looked at me and nodded. We started off— him leading the horse by the bridle, Maud hunched and stiff upon it, me walking behind. Still we met no-one. Again I looked at the stars. You never saw stars so bright at home, the sky was never so dark and so clear.
The horse was shoeless. Its hooves sounded dull on the dirt of the road.