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 came another noise then, above the ordinary creakings and tickings of the house—perhaps, the opening and shutting of another door, far-off. But I couldn’t be sure. I called once, in a whisper, ‘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,
‘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 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 ri
ver, 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 broken moonlight, the creaking of the sculls, the dipping and the rising of 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.
We went rather slowly—for Maud’s sake, I suppose, so she should not be shaken about and made sick. She looked sick, anyway; and when we came at last to the place he had found—it was two or three leaning cottages, and a great dark church—she looked sicker than ever. A dog came up and started barking. Gentleman kicked it and made it yelp. He led us to the cottage that was nearest the church, and the door was opened, a man came out, and then a woman, holding a lantern. They had been waiting. The woman was the one who had kept the rooms for us: she was yawning, but stretching her neck as she yawned, to get a good look at Maud. She made Gentleman a curtsey. The man was the parson, the vicar—whatever you call him. He made a bow. He wore a gown of dirty white, and wanted shaving. He said,
‘Good-night to you. Good-night to you, miss. And what a fair night, for an escapade!’
Gentleman said only, ‘Is everything made ready?’ He put his arms up to Maud, to help her from the horse: she kept her hands upon the saddle, and slid down awkwardly, and stepped away from him. She did not come to me, but stood alone. The woman still studied her. She was studying her pale, set, handsome face, her look of sickness, and I knew she was thinking—as anyone would think, I suppose—that she was in the family way, and marrying out of fear. Perhaps Gentleman had even made her think it, when he spoke to her before. For it would be all to his advantage, if it came to a challenge by Mr Lilly, for it to seem that he had had Maud in her uncle’s own house; and we could say the baby got miscarried, later.
I would say it, I thought, for five hundred more.
I thought that, even as I stood watching the woman looking at Maud and hating her for doing it; even as I hated myself, for thinking it. The parson came forward and made another bow.
‘All’s ready indeed, sir,’ he said. ‘There’s only the little matter of—In light of the special circumstances—’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Gentleman. He took the parson aside and drew out his pocket-book. The horse tossed its head, but from one of the other cottages a boy had come over to lead it away. He also looked at Maud; but then he looked from her to me, and it was me he touched his cap to. Of course, he had not seen her in the saddle, and I was dressed in one of her old gowns and must have seemed quite a lady; and she stood in such a mean and shrinking kind of way, that she seemed the maid.
She did not see it. She had her eyes upon the ground. The parson put his money away in some close pocket under his robe, then he rubbed his hands together. ‘Well and good,’ he said. ‘And should the lady like to change her costume? Should she like to visit her room? Or shall we do the joining at once?’
‘We’ll do it at once,’ said Gentleman, before anyone else could answer. He took off his hat and smoothed his hair, fussing a little with the curls about his ears. Maud stood very stiff. I went to her, and put her hood up nicely, and settled the cloak in neater folds; and then I passed my hands across her hair and cheeks. She would not look at me. Her face was cold. The hem of her skirt was dark, as if dipped in a dye for mourning. Her cloak had mud on it. I said, ‘Give me your mittens, miss.’—For I knew that, beneath them, she had her white kid gloves. I said, ‘You had much better go to your wedding in white gloves, than buff mittens.’
She let me draw them from her, then she stood and crossed her hands. The woman said to me, ‘No flower, for the lady?’ I looked at Gentleman. He shrugged.
‘Should you like a flower, Maud?’ he said carelessly. She didn’t answer. He said, ‘Well, I think we shall not mind the absence of a flower. Now, sir, if you will—’
I said, ‘You might at least get her a flower! Just one flower, for her to carry into church!’
I had not thought of it until the woman said it; but now—oh! the cruelty of taking her, without a bloom, to be his wife, seemed all at once a frightful thing, I could not bear it. My voice came out sounding almost wild, and Gentleman gazed at me and frowned, and the parson looked curious, the woman sorry; and then Maud turned her eyes to me and said slowly,
‘I should like a flower, Richard. I should like a flower. And Sue must have a flower, too.’
With every saying of the one word, flower, it seemed to grow a little stranger. Gentleman let out his breath and began to look about him in a peevish sort of way. The parson also looked. It was half-past one or so, and very dark out of the moonlight. We stood in a muddy kind of green, with hedges of brambles. The hedges were black. If there were flowers in there, we should never have found them. I said to the woman,
‘Haven’t you nothing we might take? Haven’t you a flower in a pot?’ She thought a minute, then stepped nimbly back into her cottage; and what she came out with at last was, a sprig of dry leaves, round as shillings, white as paper, quivering on a few thin stalks that looked ready to snap.
It was honesty. We stood and gazed at it, and no-one would name it. Then Maud took the stalks and divided them up, giving some to me, but keeping the most for herself. In her hands the leaves quivered harder than ever. Gentleman lit up a cigarette and took two puffs of it, then threw it away. It stayed glowing in the darkness. He nodded to the parson, and the parson took up the lantern, and led us through the church gate and along a path between a line of tilting gravestones that the moon gave deep, sharp shadows. Maud walked with Gentleman, and he held her arm in his. I walked with the woman. We were to be witnesses. Her name was Mrs Cream.
‘Come far?’ she said.
I did not answer.
The church was of flint and, even with the moon on it, looked quite black. Inside it was whitewashed, but the white had turned to yellow. There were a few candles lit, about the altar and the pews, and a few moths about the candles, some dead in the wax. We did not try to sit, but went straight to the altar, and the parson stood before us with his Bible. He blinked at the page. He read, and muddled his words. Mrs Cream breathed hard, like a horse. I stood and held my poor, bent twig of honesty, and watched Maud standing at Gentleman’s side, holding tight on to hers. I had kissed her. I had lain upon her. I had touched her with a sliding hand. I had called her a pearl. She had been kinder to me than anyone save Mrs Sucksby; and she had made me love her, when I meant only to ruin her.
She was about to be married, and was frightened to death. And soon no-one would love her, ever again.
I saw Gentleman look at her. The parson coughed over his book. He had got to the part of the service that asked if anybody there knew any reason as to why the man and woman before him should not be married; and he looked up through his eyebrows, and for a second the church was still.
I held my breath, and said nothing.
So then he went on, looking at Maud and at Gentleman, asking the same thing of them, saying that, on the Day of Judgement they should have to give up all the awful secrets of their hearts; and had much better give
them up now, and be done with it.
Again there was a silence.
So then he turned to Gentleman. ‘Will you,’ he said, and all the rest of it—‘Will you have her and honour her, for as long as you live?’
‘I will,’ said Gentleman.
The parson nodded. Then he faced Maud, and asked the same thing of her; and she hesitated, then spoke.
‘I will,’ she said.
Then Gentleman stood a little easier. The parson stretched his throat from his collar and scratched it.
‘Who gives this woman to be married?’ he said.
I kept quite still, till Gentleman turned to me; and then he gestured with his head, and I went and stood at Maud’s side, and they showed me how I must take her hand and pass it to the parson, for him to put it into Gentleman’s. I would rather Mrs Cream had done it, than almost anything. Her fingers, without her glove, were stiff and cold as fingers made of wax. Gentleman held them, and spoke the words the parson read to him; and then Maud took his hand, and said the same words over. Her voice was so thin, it seemed to rise like smoke into the darkness, and then to vanish.
Then Gentleman brought a ring out, and he took her hand again and put the ring over her finger, all the time repeating the parson’s words, that he would worship her, and give her all his goods. The ring looked queer upon her. It seemed gold in the candle-light, but—I saw it later—it was bad.