Lady's maids -- Fiction; Love stories; Wessex (England) -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
It was a man, then, who stood there. To go to the door just at this time
was impolitic, and she shrank back into an inner corner to wait. The
comparative security from discovery that her new position ensured
resuscitated reason a little, and empowered her to form some logical
inferences:--
1. The man who stood on the copper had taken advantage of the darkness
to get there, as she had to enter.
2. The man must have been hidden in the outhouse before she had reached
the door.
3. He must be watching Manston with much calculation and system, and for
purposes of his own.
She could now tell by the noises that Manston had completed his
re-erection of the cupboard. She heard him replacing the articles it had
contained--bottle by bottle, tool by tool--after which he came into the
brewhouse, went to the window, and pulled down the cloths covering it;
but the window being rather small, this unveiling scarcely relieved the
darkness of the interior. He returned to the workshop, hoisted something
to his back by a jerk, and felt about the room for some other article.
Having found it, he emerged from the inner door, crossed the brewhouse,
and went into the yard. Directly he stepped out she could see his
outline by the light of the clouded and weakly moon. The sack was slung
at his back, and in his hand he carried a spade.
Anne now waited in her corner in breathless suspense for the proceedings
of the other man. In about half-a-minute she heard him descend from the
copper, and then the square opening of the doorway showed the outline of
this other watcher passing through it likewise. The form was that of
a broad-shouldered man enveloped in a long coat. He vanished after the
steward.
The woman vented a sigh of relief, and moved forward to follow.
Simultaneously, she discovered that the watcher whose foot she had
touched was, in his turn, watched and followed also.
It was by one of her own sex. Anne Seaway shrank backward again. The
unknown woman came forward from the further side of the yard, and
pondered awhile in hesitation. Tall, dark, and closely wrapped, she
stood up from the earth like a cypress. She moved, crossed the yard
without producing the slightest disturbance by her footsteps, and went
in the direction the others had taken.
Anne waited yet another minute--then in her turn noiselessly followed
the last woman.
But so impressed was she with the sensation of people in hiding, that
in coming out of the yard she turned her head to see if any person were
following her, in the same way. Nobody was visible, but she discerned,
standing behind the angle of the stable, Manston’s horse and gig, ready
harnessed.
He did intend to fly after all, then, she thought. He must have placed
the horse in readiness, in the interval between his leaving the house
and her exit by the window. However, there was not time to weigh this
branch of the night’s events. She turned about again, and continued on
the trail of the other three.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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