Chapter XXII: Miss Hallet in the Dust

Miss Hallet stood in the parlour of her pretty cottage on the cliff. For a wonder, she was doing nothing--being usually a most industrious body. As she stood upright in deep thought, her spare, straight, up-and-down figure motionless, her pale face still, it might be seen that some matter was troubling her mind. The matter was this: Jane (as she phrased it to herself) was getting beyond her.

A week or more had elapsed since the night Jane had made the accident to Polly Gleeson an excuse for staying out late. Children could not be burnt every night,--and yet the fault continued. Each night, since then, had she been out, and stayed later than she ought to stay: a great deal later than her aunt considered was at all proper or expedient. On the previous night, Miss Hallet had essayed to stop it. When Jane put on her cloak to take what she called her run down the cliff, Miss Hallet in her stern, quiet way, had said, "You are not going this evening, Jane." Jane's answer had been, "I must go, aunt; I have something to do"--and went.

"What's to be done if she won't mind me?" deliberated Miss Hallet. "I can't lock her up: she's too old for it. What she can possibly want, flying down the cliff night after night, passes my comprehension. As to sitting with Goody Dance or any other old fish-wife, as Jane sometimes tells me she has been doing, I don't believe a word of it. Its not in the nature of young girls to shut themselves up so much with the aged. Why, I have heard Jane call me old behind my back--and I want a good twenty or thirty years of old Dame Dance's age."

Miss Hand stopped a minute, to listen to sounds overhead. Jane was up there making the beds. She soon resumed her reflections.

"No, it's not Mother Dance, or any other old mother. It's her love of tattle and gossip. When young girls can get together, they'd talk of the moon if there was no other subject at hand--chattering geese! But that there's not a young chap in all the village that Jane would condescend to look at, I might think she had picked up a sweetheart. She holds herself too high for any of them. And quite right too: she is above them. They are but a parcel of poor fishers: and as to that young Pike, who serves in his father's shop, he has no more sense in him, and Jane knows it, than a kite's tail. No, it's not sweethearts! it's dawdling and gossip along with Susan Pike and the rest of the foolish girls. But oh, how things have changed!--to think that Jane Hallet should consort with such!"

Miss Hallet lifted her eyes to the ceiling, as though she could see through it what Jane was about. By the sound it seemed that she was sweeping the carpet.

"She is a good girl on the whole; I own that," went on Miss Hallet. "Up betimes in a morning, and keeping steady to whatever she has to do, whether it may be housework or sewing: and never gadding in the day-time. The run in the evening does her good, she says: perhaps so: but the staying late doesn't. I don't like to be harsh with her," continued Miss Hallet, after a pause. "She stands alone, save for me, now her brother's gone--and she grieves after him still. Moreover, I am not sure that Jane would stand any harsh authority, if I did put it forth. Poor George would not--though I am sure I only wanted to control him for his good: he went off and made a home for himself down in the village: and Jane has a touch of her brother's spirit. There's the difficulty."

At this moment Jane ran down the stairs with a broom and dust-pan, and went into the kitchen. Presently she came forth in her bonnet and shawl, a small basket in her hand.

"Where are you off to?" asked Miss Hallet snappishly. For if she did acknowledge to herself that Jane was a good girl, there was no necessity to let Jane know it. And Miss Hallet was one of those rigid, well-meaning people who can hardly ever speak to friend or foe without appearing cross. All for their good, of course: as this tart tone was for Jane's.

"To buy the eggs, aunt. You told me I was to go for them when I had done the rooms."

"I'll go for the eggs myself," said Miss Hallet, "I'll not be beholden to you to do my errands. Take your bonnet off and get to your work. Those handkerchiefs of Mrs. Castlemaine's don't seem to progress very quickly."

"They are all finished but one, aunt. There have been the initial letters to work--which Mrs. Castlemaine decided afterwards to have done; and the letters take time."

"Put off your things, I say."

Jane went away with her bonnet and shawl, came back, and sat down to her sewing. She did not say, Why are you so angry with me? she knew quite well why it was, and preferred to avoid unsatisfactory topics. Miss Hallet deliberately attired herself, and went out for the eggs. They kept no servant: the ordinary work of the house was light: and when rougher labour was required, washing and cleaning, a woman came in from the village to do it. The Hallets were originally of fairly good descent. Miss Hallet had been well reared, and her instincts were undoubtedly those of a gentlewoman: but when in early life she found that she would have to turn out in the world and work for her living, it was a blow that she never could get over. A feeling of blight took possession of her even now when she looked back at that time. In the course of years she retired on the money bequeathed to her, and on some savings of her own. Her brother (who had never risen higher than to be the captain of a small schooner) had then become a widower with two children. He died: and these children were left to the mercy of the world, very much as he and his sister had been left some twenty years before. Miss Hallet took to them. George was drowned: it has been already stated: Jane was with her still; and, as the reader sees, was not altogether giving satisfaction. In Miss Hallet's opinion, Jane's destiny was already fixed: she would lead a single life, and grow gradually into an old maid, as she herself had done. Miss Hallet considered it the best destiny Jane could invoke: whether it was or not, there seemed to be no help for it. Men whom she would have deemed Jane's equals, were above them in position: and she believed Jane would not look at an inferior. So Miss Hallet had continued to live on in her somewhat isolated life; civil to the people around her but associating with none; and always conscious that her fortunes and her just merits were at variance.

She attired herself in a rather handsome shawl and close straw bonnet, and went down the cliff after the required eggs. Jane sat at the open parlour window, busy over the last of Mrs. Castlemaine's handkerchiefs. She wore her neat morning print gown, with its small white collar and bow of fresh lilac ribbon, and looked cool and pretty. Miss Hallet grumbled frightfully at anything like extravagance in dress; but at the same time would have rated Jane soundly had she seen her untidy or anything but nice in any one particular. When the echo of her aunt's footsteps had fully died away, Jane laid the handkerchief on the table, and took from her pocket some other material, which she began to work at stealthily.

That's the right word for it--stealthily. For she glanced cautiously around as if the very moss on the cliff side would take note of it, and she kept her ears well on the alert, to guard against surprise. Miss Hallet had told her she did not get on very quickly with the handkerchiefs: but Miss Hallet did not know, or suspect, that when times were propitious--namely, when she herself was away from observation, or Jane safely shut up in her own room--the handkerchiefs were discarded for this other work. And yet, the work regarded casually, presented no private or ugly features. It looked like a strip of fine lawn, and was just as nice-looking and snowy as the cambric on the table.

Jane's fingers plied quickly their needle and thread. Presently she slipped a pattern of thin paper out of her pocket, unfolded it, and began to cut the lawn according to its fashion. While thus occupied, her attentive ear caught the sound of approaching footsteps: in a trice, pattern and work were in her pocket again out of sight, and she was diligently pursuing the hem-stitching of the handkerchief.

A tall, plain girl, with straggling curls of a deep red darkened the window: Miss Susan Pike, daughter of Pike, the well-to-do grocer and general dealer. Deep down in Jane Hallet's heart there had always lain an instinctive consciousness, warning her that she was superior to this girl, as well as to Matty Nettleby, of quite a different order altogether: but the young crave companionship, and will have it, suitable or unsuitable, where it is to be had. The only young lady in the place was Ethel Reene, and Jane Hallet's good sense told her that that companionship would be just as unsuitable the other way: she might as well aspire to covet an intimacy with a duchess's daughter as with Miss Reene.

"Weil, you are hard at work this morning, Jane!" was Miss Susan Pike's unceremonious and somewhat resentful salutation, as she put her hands upon the window-sill and, her head inside. For she did not at all favour work herself.

"Will you come in, Susan?" returned Jane, rising and unslipping the bolt of the door: which she had slipped after the departure of her aunt.

"Them are Mrs. Castlemaine's handkerchiefs, I suppose," observed Susan, responding to the invitation and taking a chair. "Grand fine cambric, ain't it! Well, Jane, you do hem-stitch well, I must say."

"I have to work her initials on them also," remarked Jane. "S.C."

"S.C.," repeated Miss Pike. "What do the S. stand for? What's her Chris'en name?"

"Sophia."

"Sophia!--that is a smart name. Do you work the letters in satin stitch?"

"Yes. With the dots on each side it."

"You learnt all that fine hem-stitching and braider-work at the Nunnery, Jane--and your aunt knows how to do it too, I suppose. I shouldn't have patience for it. I'd rather lade out treacle all day: and of all precious disagreeable articles our shop serves, treacle's the worst. I hate it--sticking one's hands, and messing the scales. I broke a basin yesterday morning, lading it out," continued Miss Susan: "let it slip through my fingers. Sister Phoebe came in for a pound of it, to make the ladies a pudding for dinner, she said; and I let her basin drop. Didn't mother rate me!"

"Did Sister Phoebe say how the child was getting on?--Polly Gleeson."

"Polly's three parts well, I think. Old Parker does not go across there any more. I say, Jane, I came up to ask if you'd come along with me to Stilborough this afternoon."

"I can't," said Jane. "My aunt has been very angry with me this morning. I should no more dare to ask her to let me go to Stilborough to-day than I should dare to fly."

"What has she been angry about?"

"Oh, about my not getting on with my work, and one thing or other," replied Jane carelessly. "She would not let me fetch some eggs just now; she's gone herself. And she knows that in a few days' time I shall have to go to Stilborough on my own account."

"She's a nice article for an aunt!" grumbled Miss Susan. "I've got to order in some things for the shop, and I thought it would be pleasant for us two to walk there together. You are sure you can't come Jane?"

"Quite sure. It is of no use talking of it."

"I must ask Matty Nettleby, then. But I'd rather have had you."

Miss Susan, who was somewhat younger than Jane, and wore dirty pink bonnet strings, which did not contrast well with the red curls, and a tumbled, untidy frock (but who would no doubt go off on her expedition to Stilborough finer than an African queen) fingered discontentedly, one by one, the scissors, cotton, and other articles in Jane's work-box. She was not of good temper.

"Well, it's a bother! I can't think what right aunts have to domineer over folks! And I must be off to keep shop, or I shall have mother about me. Father's got one of his liver bouts, and is lying abed till dinner-time."

"I wish you'd bring me a pound of wool from Stilborough, Susan? You know where I buy it."

"Let's have the number, then."

Jane gave her a skein of the size and colour wanted, and the money for the purchase. "I'll come down for it this evening," she said. "You'll be back then."

"All right. Good-bye, Jane."

"Good-bye," returned Jane. And as the damsel's fleet steps betook her down the cliff, Jane bolted the door again, put the cambric handkerchief aside, and took the private work out of her pocket.

Meanwhile Miss Hallet had reached the village. Not very speedily. When she went out--which was but seldom--she liked to take her leisure over it. She turned aside to Tim Gleeson's cottage, to inquire after Polly; she halted at the door of two or three more poor fishermen's huts to give the good morrow, or ask after the little ones. Miss Hallet's face was cold, her manner harsh: but she could feel for the troubles of the world, and she gave what help she could to the poor folks around her.

The old woman from whom she bought her eggs, lived in a small cottage past the Dolphin Inn. Miss Hallet got her basket filled--she and Jane often had eggs and bread and butter for dinner to save cooking--paid, and talked a bit with the woman. In returning, Mrs. Bent was at the inn door, in her chintz gown and cherry cap ribbons.

"Is it you, Miss Hallet! How are you this morning?"

"Quite well, thank you," replied Miss Hallet in her prim way.

"Been getting some eggs, I see," ran on Mrs. Bent, unceremoniously. "It's not often you come down to do your own errands. Where's Jane?"

"I left her at work," was the answer. "Jane does not get through her sewing as quickly as she might, and I have been telling her of it."

"You can't put old heads upon young shoulders," cried Mrs. Bent. "Girls like to be idle; and that's the truth. What do you suppose I caught that Molly of mine at, last night? Stuck down at the kitchen table, writing a love-letter."

Miss Hallet had her eyes bent on her eggs, as though she were counting them.

"Writing a letter, if you'll believe me! And, a fine thing of a letter it was! Smudged with ink and the writing like nothing on earth but spiders' legs in a fit. I ordered it put on the fire. She's not going to waste her time in scribbling to sweethearts while she stays with me."

"Did she rebel?" quickly asked Miss Hallet.

"Rebel! Molly! I should like to see her attempt it. She was just as sheepish as a calf at being found out, and sent the paper into the fire quicker than I could order it in."

Gossip about Mrs. Bent's Molly, or any other Molly, was never satisfactory to Miss Hallet. She broke the subject by inquiring after John Bent's health, preparatory to pursuing her way.

"Oh, he's well enough," was Mrs. Bent's answer. "It's not often men get anything the matter with them. If they were possessed of as much common sense as they are of health, I'd say it was a blessing. That weak-souled husband of mine, seeing Molly piping and sniffing last night, told me privately that he saw no harm in love-letters. He'd see no harm in a score of donkeys prancing over his young plants and other garden stuff next, leave him alone."

"I am glad Mr. Bent is well," said Miss Hallet, taking a step onwards. "Jane told me last week he was ill."

"He had a bilious attack. Jane came in the same night and saw him with his head on a cushion. By the way--look here, Miss Hallet--talking about Jane--I'd not let her be out quite so much after dark, if I were you."

No words could have been more unwelcome to Miss Hallet than these. She was a very proud woman, never brooking advice of any kind. In her heart she regarded Jane as being so infinitely superior to all Greylands, the Greylands' Rest family and the doctor's excepted, that any reproach cast on her seemed nothing less than a presumption. It might please herself to reflect upon her niece for gadding about, but it did not please her that others should.

"Young girls like their fling; I know that," went on Mrs. Bent, who never stayed her tongue for anybody. "To coop 'em up in a pen, like a parcel of old hens, doesn't do. But there's reason in all things: and it seems to me that Jane's out night after night.'

"My niece comes down the cliff for a run at dusk, when it is too dark for her to see to sew," stiffly responded Miss Hallet. "I have yet to learn, Mrs. Bent, what harm the run can do to her or to you."

"None to me, for certain; I hope none to her. I see her in Mr. Harry Castlemaine's company a little oftener than I should choose a girl of mine to be in it. I do not say it is for any harm; don't take up that notion, Miss Hallet; but Mr. Harry's not the right sort of man, being a gentleman, for Jane to make a companion of."

"And who says Jane does make him her companion?"

"I do. She is with him more than's suitable. And--look here, Miss Hallet, if I'm saying this to you, it is with a good motive and because I have a true regard for Jane, so I hope you will take it in the friendly spirit it's meant. If they walked together by daylight, I'd not think so much of it, though in my opinion that would not be the proper thing, considering the difference between them, who he is and who she is: but it is not by daylight, it is after dark."

Miss Hallet felt a sudden chill--as though somebody were pouring cold water down her back. But she was bitterly resentful, and very hard of belief. Mrs. Bent saw the proud lines of the cold face.

"Look here, Miss Hallet. I don't say there's any harm come of it, or likely to come: if I'd thought that, I'd have told you before. Girls are more heedless than the wind, and when they are as pretty as Jane is young men like to talk to them. Mr. Harry is in and about the village at night--he often says to me how dull his own home is--and he and Jane chance to meet somewhere or other, and they talk and laugh together, roaming about while they do it. That's the worst of it, I hope: but it is not a prudent thing for Jane to do."

"Jane stays down here with her friends; she is never at a loss for companions," resentfully spoke Miss Hallet. "She sits with old Goody Dance: and she is a good deal with Miss Nettleby and with Pike's daughter; sometimes staying in one place, sometimes in another. Why, one evening last week--Thursday was it? yes, Thursday--she said she was here, helping you."

"So she was here. We had a party in the best room that night. Jane ran in; and, seeing how busy I was, she helped me to wash up the glass: she's always good-natured and ready to forward a body. She stayed here till half-past eight o'clock."

Miss Hallet's face looked doubly grim. It was nearer half-past ten than half-past eight when Miss Jane made her appearance at home--as she well remembered.

"And now don't you go blowing up Jane through what I've said," enjoined Mrs. Bent. "We were young ourselves once, and liked our liberty. She's thoughtless; that's all; if she were a few years older, she would have the sense to know that folks might get talking about her. Just give her a caution, Miss Hallet: and remind her that Mr. Harry Castlemaine is just about as far above her and us, as the moon's higher than that old weather-cock a-top of the Nunnery."

Miss Hallet went homewards with her eggs. She had perfect confidence in Jane, in her conduct and principles. Jane, as she believed, would never make a habit of walking with Mr. Harry Castlemaine, or he with her: they had both too much common sense. Unless--and a flush illumined Miss Hallet's face at the sudden thought--unless they had fallen into some foolish, fancied love affair with one another.

"Such things have happened before now, of course," reasoned Miss Hallet to herself as she began her ascent of the cliff but her tone was dubious, almost as though she would have liked to be able to tell herself that they never had happened. "But they would know better; both of them; remembering that nothing could come of it. As to the walking together--I believe that's three parts Mrs. Bent's imagination. It is not likely to be true. Good morning, Darke!"

A fisherman in a red cap, jolting down the cliff, had saluted Miss Hallet in passing. She went on with her thoughts.

"Suppose I watch Jane a bit? There's nothing I should so much hate as to speak to her upon a topic such as this, and then find I had spoken without cause. It would be derogatory to her and to me. Yes," added Miss Hallet with decision, "that will be the best plan. The next time Jane goes out at dusk, I'll follow her."

The next time happened to be that same evening. Miss Hallet gave not a word of scolding to Jane all day: and the latter kept diligently to her work at Mrs. Castlemaine's handkerchief. At dusk Jane put her warm dark cloak on, and the soft quilted bonnet.

"Where are you going to-night?" questioned Miss Hallet then, with a stress of emphasis on the to-night.

"Just down the cliff, aunt. I want to get the wool Susan Pike was to buy for me at Stilborough."

"Always an excuse for gadding out!" exclaimed Miss Hallet.

"Well, aunt, I must have the wool. I may be wanting it to-morrow."

"You'll toast me two thin bits of toast before you go," said the aunt snappishly.

Jane put off her cloak and proceeded to cut the slices of bread and toast them. But the fire was very low, and they took some considerable time to brown properly.

"Do you wish the toast buttered, aunt?"

"No. Cut it in strips. And now go and draw me my ale."

"It is early for supper, aunt."

"You do as you are bid, Jane. If I feel cold, I suppose I am at liberty to drink my ale a trifle earlier than usual, to warm me."

Jane drew the ale in a china mug that held exactly half-a-pint, and brought it in. It was Miss Hallet's evening allowance: one she never exceeded. Her supper frequently consisted of what she was about to take now: the strips of toast soaked in the ale, and eaten. It was much favoured by elderly people in those days, and was called Toast-and-ale.

Jane resumed her cloak, and was allowed to depart without farther hindrance. But during the detention, the dusk of the evening had become nearly dark. Perhaps Miss Hallet had intended this.

She ate a small portion of the toast very quickly, drank some of the ale, leaving the rest for her return, and had her own bonnet and dark shawl on in no time. Then, locking her house door for safety, she followed in the wake of Jane.

She saw Jane before she reached the foot of the cliff: for the latter's light steps had been detained by encountering Tim and Nancy Gleeson, who could not be immediately got rid of. Miss Hallet halted as a matter of precaution: it would not answer to overtake her. Jane went onwards, and darted across the road to Pike's shop. Miss Hallet stood in a shady angle underneath the cliff, and waited.

Waited for a good half hour. At the end of that time Jane came out again, a paper parcel in her hand. "The wool," thought Miss Hallet, moving her feet about, for they were getting cramped. "And now where's she going? On to the beach, I shouldn't wonder!"

Not to the beach. Jane came back by the side of the shops, the butcher's and the baker's and the little humble draper's, and turned the corner that led to the Grey Nunnery. Miss Hallet cautiously crossed the road to follow her. When Miss Hallet had her in view again, Jane had halted, and seemed to be doing something to her cloak. The aunt managed to make out that Jane was drawing its hood over her quilted bonnet, so as to shade her face. With the loose cloak hiding her figure, and the hood the best part of her face, Jane's worst enemy would not have known her speedily.

Away she sped again with a swift foot; not running, but walking lightly and quickly. The stars were very bright: night reigned. Miss Hallet, spare of form, could walk almost as quickly as Jane and she kept her in view. Onwards, past the gate of the Nunnery, went Jane to the exceeding surprise of Miss Hallet. What could her business be, in that lonely road?--a road that she herself, who had more than double the years and courage of Jane, would not have especially chosen as a promenade at night. Could Jane be going dancing up to the coastguard station, to inquire after Henry Mann's sick wife? What simpletons young girls were! They had no sense at all: and thought no more of appearances than----

A shrill noise, right over Miss Hallet's head, cut her reflections suddenly short, and sent her with a start against the Nunnery palings. It was a bird flying across, from seaward, which had chosen to make known his presence. The incident did not divert her attention from the pursuit for more than an instant: but in that instant she lost sight of Jane.

What an extraordinary thing! Where was she? How had she vanished? Miss Hallet strained her eyes as she asked the questions. When the bird suddenly diverted her attention, Jane had nearly gained the gate that led into the chapel ruins; might perhaps have been quite abreast of it. That Jane would not go in there, Miss Hallet felt quite convinced of; nobody would go in. She had not crossed the road to Chapel Lane or Miss Hallet could not have failed to see her cross it: it was equally certain that she was not anywhere in the road now.

Miss Hallet turned herself about like a bewildered woman. It was an occurrence so strangely mysterious as to savour of unreality. The highway had no trap-doors in it: Jane could not have been caught up into the air.

Miss Hallet walked slowly onwards, marvelling, and gazing about in all directions. When opposite the chapel gate, she took courage to look through the palings at that ghost-reputed place: but all there seemed lonely and silent as the grave. She raised her voice in call--just as John Bent had once raised his voice in the silent night after the ill-fated Anthony Castlemaine.

"Jane! Jane Hallet!"

"What on earth can have become of her?" debated Miss Hallet, as no response was made to the call. "She can't have gone up Chapel Lane!"

With a view to see (in spite of her conviction) whether Jane was in the lane, Miss Hallet betook herself to cross over towards it. She went slowly; glancing around and about her; and had got to the middle of the road when a faint light appeared in one of the windows of the Friar's Keep. Miss Hallet had heard that this same kind of faint light generally heralded the apparition of the Grey Monk; and she stood transfixed with horror.

Sure enough! A moment later, and the figure in his grey cowl and habit glided slowly past the window, lamp in hand. The unhappy lady gave one terror-stricken, piercing scream, and dropped down flat in the dusty highway.