CHAPTER I. IN MY LADY'S CHAMBER.
|IT is an hour short of midnight, and the depth of winter. The morrow is
Christmas Day. Mirk Abbey bears snow everywhere; inches thick upon its
huge broad coping-stones; much even on its sloping roof, save on the
side where the north wind makes fitful rushes, and, wolf-like, tears and
worries the white fleeces. Mirk woods sway mournfully their naked arms,
and grind and moan without; the ivy taps unceasingly against the pane,
as though entreating shelter.
The whole earth lies cold and dead beneath its snow-shroud, and yet the
snow falls and falls, flake by flake, soft and noiseless in its white
malice, like a woman's hate upon her rival.
It hides the stars, it dims the moon, it dulls the murmur of the river
to which the Park slopes down, and whose voice the frost has striven in
vain to hush these three weeks. Only the Christmas-bells are heard,
now faint, now full--that sound more laden with divine regret than
any other that falls on human ear. Like one who, spurring from the
battle-field, proclaims "The fight is ours, but our great chief is
slain!" there is sorrow in that message of good tidings; and not only
for pious Christian folk; in every bosom it stirs some sleeping memory,
and reminds it of the days that are no more. No wonder, then, that such
music should touch my Lady's heart--the widowed mistress of Mirk
Abbey. Those Christmas-bells which are also wedding-bells, remind her
doubtless of the hour when Sir Robert lifted her lace-veil aside, and
kissed her brow before all the people in the little church by the sea,
and called her for the first time his Wife. He will never do so more. He
has been dead for years. But what of that? Our dead are with us still.
Our acts, our dealings with the world, form but a portion of our lives;
our thoughts still dwell with those dear ones who have gone home before
us, and in our dreams they still are our companions. My Lady is not
alone in her private chamber, although no human being is there besides
herself. Her eyes are fixed upon the fire, and in its flame she sees a
once-loved face invisible to others, whose smile has power to move her
even to tears. How foolish are those who ascribe romance to Youth alone
--to Youth, that has scarcely learned to love, far less to lose! My Lady
is five-and-forty at the least, although still comely; and yet there are
memories at work within that broad white brow, which, for interest and
pathos, outweigh the fancies of a score of girls. Even so far as we--the
world--are acquainted with her past, it is a strange one, and may well
give her that thoughtful air.
Lady Lisgard, of Mirk Abbey, has looked at life from a far other
station than that which she now occupies. When a man of fortune does not
materially increase his property by marriage, we call the lady of his
choice, although she may have a few thousand pounds of her own, "a
girl without a sixpence." But Sir Robert Lisgard did literally make
a match of this impecunious sort. Moreover, he married a very
"unsuitable young person;" by which expression you will understand
that he was blamed, not for choosing a bride very much junior to
himself, but for not selecting her from the proper circles. When
accidentally interrogated by blundering folks respecting her ancestry,
the baronet used good-humouredly to remark, that his wife was the
daughter of Neptune and Thetis. When asked for her maiden name, he would
reply drily: "She was a Miss Anna Dyomene;" for the simple fact
was, that she had been thrown up almost at his feet by the sea--the sole
survivor of a crowded emigrant-ship that went to pieces before his
eyes while he was staying one stormy autumn at a sea-side village in the
South. Lashed to a spar, the poor soul came ashore one terrible night in
a very insufficient costume, so as to excite the liveliest compassion
in all beholders. There was a subscription got up among some visitors of
fashion to supply her with a wardrobe; and they do say that Sir Robert
Lisgard's name is still to be seen set down with the rest of the
benevolent donors, for five pounds, in the list that is kept among the
archives of the village post-office.
But it was not until three years afterwards that he bought her a
trousseau; for the baronet, intending to make her his wife not only in
name--a companion for life, and not a plaything, which is prized so long
as it is new, and no longer--caused Lucy Gavestone, during the greater
part of that interval, to be educated for her future position. If it was
madness in him, as many averred, to marry so far beneath him, there
was much method in his madness, Not ashamed of her as a bride, he was
resolved not to be ashamed of her as the mistress of his house, or as
the mother of his children, if it should please Heaven to grant him
issue. It was in France, folks said, that her Ladyship acquired those
manners which subsequently so excited the envy of the midland county in
which she lived. She bore the burden of the honours unto which she was
not born as gracefully as the white rose in her blue-black hair. But
to perform her loving duties as a mother, in the way even her enemies
admitted that she did perform them, could scarcely have been learned in
France. Only love and natural good sense could have taught her those.
Never once had Sir Robert Lisgard cause to regret the gift which the sea
had given him. He used, however, smilingly to remark, in his later years
--and his words were not without their pathos then--that he wished that
he could have married his Lucy earlier, and while he was yet a young
man; but in that case she would have been fitter for the font than
the altar, inasmuch as there was a quarter of a century between their
respective ages. He always averred that five-and-twenty years of his
manhood had been thrown away.
But good wife and matron as Lady Lisgard had been, she was no less
excellent a widow and mother. If Sir Robert could have risen from that
grave in Mirk churchyard, where he had preferred to lie, rather than
in the family vault, so that she might come to visit him in his lonely
sleep, and daily lay a flower or two, culled with her own hands, upon
him--not perhaps unconscious of that loving service--he would have
found all things at the Abbey as he would have wished them to be during
life: that is, so far as she could keep them so. Sir Richard, their
eldest son, was within a few months of his majority, and, of course, had
become in a great degree his own master; not that he misused his
years so as to place himself in opposition to his mother, for he was a
gentleman above everything; but he was of a disposition more haughty
and stern than her kindly nature could well cope with, and she
nervously shrank from any contest with it, although, on a question of
principle--which, however, had not occurred--she might have braved even
him.
Walter Lisgard, the younger son, was as genial and good-humoured as his
father before him, and although (in common with every one who knew her)
loved and respected my Lady, it must be confessed that he was too openly
his mother's favourite, as he was the favourite of all at Mirk, in the
Abbey or out of it.
Lastly, there was Letty Lisgard--but she shall speak for her sweet self.
While her mother sits and thinks before her fire, there is a knock at
the chamber-door, and on the instant the picture in her brain dissolves,
which was affecting her so deeply, and she has no eyes save for her only
daughter. A girl of seventeen enters the room, not gaily, as would have
become her age, but with a certain gentle gravity that becomes her at
least as well, since it is impossible to imagine that she could look
more lovely. Fair as a lily, but not pale, for her usually delicate
colour is heightened by some mental emotion, which causes, too, the
little diamond cross upon her bosom to rise and fall, and the hazel
eyes to melt and glitter beneath their dark lashes; lithe and tall as
a sapling wooed too roughly by the north wind, she glides in, with her
fair head slightly bowed, and casting herself upon her knees beside my
Lady, exclaims: "Ah, do not weep, dear mother--do not weep!" at the
same time herself bursting into a passion of tears. "I knew what you
would be thinking of," continues she, "upon this sad night, and
therefore I came to comfort you a little, if I could. If not a merry
Christmas, let me at least wish you a happy one, my own dear mother. I
am sure that if dear papa can see us now, he wishes you the same."
"Yes, dearest Letty, that is true. How thoughtful and kind it was of
you to leave your friend--breaking off, no doubt, some pleasant chat
over school-days"----
"Nay, mother," interrupted the girl; "what is Rose to me in
comparison with you? Was it likely that I should forget this anniversary
of our common loss!"
Lady Lisgard did not answer in words, but shedding by the wealth of
golden brown hair that had fallen over her daughter's forehead, she
kissed that pure brow tenderly. Upon her own cheeks, a crimson flush,
called thither by the young girl's words, was lingering yet. Reader,
happy are you if you have never known a loving voice say: "What are
you thinking of, dearest?" expecting to receive the answer: "Of
you," when you have no such reply to give--when your mind has been
wandering far from that trustful being, and perhaps even whither it
should not have wandered. Such a flush may then have visited your
cheeks, as now touched those of Lady Lisgard, although it is certain
that memory never played her so false as to remind her of aught
whereof she need have been ashamed. The fact was, she had not been
thinking of Sir Robert at all, albeit it was upon that very day, five
years back, that she had received from his failing hand its last loving
pressure, and in that very room. Human nature cannot be trained like
those wondrous mechanical inventions of the monks, that indicated the
fasts and festivals of the church so accurately--to suffer or rejoice at
particular times and seasons; we are often sad when the jest is upon
our lips, and bear a light heart beneath the sackcloth. Lady Lisgard's
thoughts had, Heaven knew, been far from merry ones; but because she
had not been mourning with chronological propriety, her woman's heart
unjustly smote her with a sense of want of fealty to the memory of him
for whom she still wore--and intended to wear to her dying day--the
visible tokens of regret.
It is the fashion to jeer at widows; but, to a reverent mind, there are
few things more touching than that frequent sight in honest England--a
widowed mother, whose only joy seems to be in what remains to her of her
dead lover, husband, counsellor--his children; and the only grief that
has power to wring whose heart, past sense of common pain through the
dread anguish that it has once undergone, arises from their misfortunes
and misdoings. Ah, selfish boy, beware how you still further burden that
sorrow-laden soul!--ah, thoughtless girl, exchange not that faithful
breast too hastily for one that may spurn your head in the hour of need!
My Lady--for that was what we always called her about Mirk--was neither
more nor less fortunate with her children than most mothers. They all
three loved her; but they did not all love one another. Between Sir
Richard and Walter was only a year of time, but upon it had arisen a
thousand quarrels. The former thought that the privilege of an elder
brother was a divine right, extending over every circumstance of
fraternal life; the latter conceived it to be an immoral institution,
borrowed in an evil hour from the Jews, and one to be strictly
kept within its peculiar limits--themselves more than sufficiently
comprehensive--the inheritance of the family title, and the succession
to the landed estates.
"Where are Richard and Walter, Letty?" asked Lady Lisgard, breaking
a long silence. "They, too, have been always mindful, like yourself,
of this sad day."
"They are mindful still, dear mother. I hear Walter's foot in the
corridor even now."
A swift elastic footfall it was, such as is very suggestive of the
impulsive nature of him who uses it; for a phlegmatic man may move
swiftly on rare occasions--such as bayonets behind him, or a mad
bull--but there will be no more elasticity in his gait, even then, than
in that of a walking-doll; whereas every step of Captain Walter
Lisgard had a double action, a rise and fall in it, independent of the
progressive motion altogether.
He was of a slim, yet not delicate build; his every movement (and, as
I have said, there was plenty of it) had a native grace like that of a
child; childlike and trustful, too, were those blue eyes; soft in
their expression as his sister's, while he stooped down to kiss
his mother's cheek, scarce more smooth than his own. Upon his lip,
however, was a fairy moustache, which being, fortunately, coal-black
like his somewhat close-cropped hair, made itself apparent to all
beholders, and rescued his comeliness from downright effeminacy. But no
woman ever owned a softer voice, or could freight it with deeper feeling
than Walter Lisgard.
"God bless you, dearest mother, and give you all the good you
deserve!" murmured he tenderly.
"And God bless you, my darling!" answered Lady Lisgard, holding
him at the full distance of her white and rounded arms, clasped with two
costly jewels, which had a worth, however, in her eyes far beyond their
price, being Sir Robert's wedding-gift. "Ah me! how you remind me of
your father's picture, Watty, taken on the day when he came of age. I
trust you will grow up to be like him in other respects, dear boy."
"I hope so, mother; although," added he, with a sudden petulancy,
"there will be a vast difference between us in some things, you know.
He was an only son, whereas I am not even an eldest one; and when I
come of age, there will be no picture taken, nor any fuss made, such as
is to happen in June, I hear, upon Richard's majority."
"Walter, Walter!" exclaimed Lady Lisgard reprovingly, "this is not
like yourself, for it's envious--and--and--covetous!"----
"At all events, it is very foolish, mother," interrupted the young
man drily; "for what can't be cured must be endured."
"And very, very cruel to me," added Lady Lisgard.
"Then I am sincerely sorry I spoke," returned Walter hastily,
the moodiness upon his features chased away at once by loving regret.
"Only, when a fellow leaves his regiment to spend Christmas-eve at
home--as I am sure I was delighted to do, so far as you and Letty were
concerned--he does not want to find there another commanding officer,
uncommissioned and self-appointed."
"Walter, Walter! this is very sad," broke in Lady Lisgard piteously:
"you know what is Richard's manner, and how much less kind it is
than his true meaning. Can you not make some allowance for your own
brother?"
"That's exactly what I said to him, mother," answered Walter,
laughing bitterly. "Here have I just got my troop, with no more to
keep myself on than when I was a cornet, and had no back debts to speak
of; and yet, so far from helping me a little, as Richard might easily
do, by making some allowance for his own brother, he complains of that
which you are so good as to let me have out of your own income. Why,
that's not his business, if it were twice as much--although, I am
sure, dear mother, you are liberality itself. Has he not got enough
of his own--and of what should be mine and Letty's here, by
rights--without grudging me your benevolences? Is he not Sir Richard
Lisgard of Mirk Abbey?"----
"I will not listen to this, Walter," cried his mother sternly.
"This is mere mean jealousy of your elder brother."
"Oh, dear no, mother; indeed, it is not that," answered the young
man coldly. "I envy him nothing. I hold him superior to me in no
respect whatever; and that is exactly why I will not submit to his
dictation. Here he comes stalking along the gallery, as though conscious
that every foot of oak belongs to him, and every picture on the wall."
It was undoubtedly a firm determined step enough--unusually so, for one
so young as Sir Richard. The face of the new-comer, too, was stem almost
to harshness; and as he entered the room, and beheld Walter standing by
his mother's side, his features seemed to stiffen into stone. A
fine face, too; more aristocratic if not so winning as his younger
brother's, and not without considerable sagacity: if his manner was
not graceful, it had a high chivalric air about it which befitted his
haughty person very well. When he taught himself submission (a rare
lesson with him), as now, while he raised his mother's fingers to his
lips, and kissed them with dutiful devotion, it would have been hard to
find a man with a more noble presence than Richard Lisgard.
"A merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you, mother." The words,
though conventional, had an earnest kindness, which came from the heart.
Lady Lisgard kissed him fondly.
"Thank you, dear Richard," said she; "but, alas! no Christmas can
be a merry one, no year a happy one, when I see my children disagree."
"Ah, Master Walter has been here before me, I see," quoth Sir
Richard bitterly, "stealing, like Jacob, his mother's blessing from
her first-born, and giving his own account of matters. But please now to
listen to my version."
"Not to-night, Richard," exclaimed Lady Lisgard with deep emotion.
"Let not tonight, sacred to the memory of your common father, be a
witness to your mutual accusations. In this room, almost at this very
hour, but a few years back, he died, bequeathing you with his last
breath to my tenderest care. Here it was that you kissed his white
lips, weary with prayers for your future welfare; here it was that you
promised, in return, to be good and dutiful sons. I know--I think, at
least--that you both love your mother. No, I will kiss neither of you
while thus unreconciled. That was not all that he required of you: he
would have bidden you, could he have looked forward to this evil time,
to love one another also; and O Richard! O Walter! hark to those bells,
that seem to strive to beat their message into the most stubborn ears.
Do you not hear what they say?--Letty, dear, do you tell them, then, for
there are no lips better suited to deliver it."
The young girl lifted up her head from her mother's lap, to gaze into
her eyes; then, with exquisite pathos and softness, repeated, like a
silver peal of bells: "Peace and good-will, peace and good-will, peace
and good-will to all mankind."
Sir Richard looked at his brother fixedly, but no longer in wrath. "It
is my part to make the first advance," said he, "although I was not
the first to quarrel;" and he frankly stretched forth his hand.
The other paused a second; then reading on his mother's anxious lips:
"For my sake, Walter," he grasped his brother's fingers. There
was grace in the very delay, as in the motion tenderness and genial
ease, but scarcely the warmth of reconciliation. It was more like the
action of a woman who wishes to please; and if you had seen the small
hand apart from its owner, as it lay with its one glittering ring half
hid in the other's huge white palm, you would have said it was a
woman's hand.
CHAPTER II. THE WAITS.
|ONCE more my Lady is alone, except for her companion-thoughts, which
are, however, no longer of a distressing nature. The reconcilement of
her boys has gladdened her to the core: she thinks, she trusts at least,
that the truce will be a lasting peace. As for Letty, she is all that
a mother's heart could wish her to be. If much is lost to my Lady,
surely much remains. With the Poor, one misery is removed only to bring
another into greater prominence; but with the Rich, this is not so. Only
let the disease be cured, or the quarrel be made up, which is at present
vexing them, and all, for a time at least, is sunshine. Even not to be
cold, not to be hungry, is something; and not to have to take thought
of the morrow is a great deal. From her warm and curtained chamber, Lady
Lisgard looks forth into the night. The snow falls as fast as ever,
now straight, now aslant, now whirled in circular eddies by the bitter
north. Through its thick and shifting veil, she can scarcely see the
old church-tower of Mirk, though it stands close by within the very
garden-grounds of the Abbey; nor the windmill which crowns Mirkland
Hill, and on moonlit nights stands up so clear against the sky, a beacon
to all the country round. It was weather which those who are armed
against it call "Seasonable;" and some of the tender sex, who have
a fire lit in their rooms before they rise, and go out in seal-skin, and
travel with foot-warmers, even go so far as to call "Delightful."
At all events, it is such as is pleasant to watch from within for a
few moments, and then to return to one's fireside with enhanced
satisfaction.
There are merry-makings in the kitchen to-night, as befits the season,
and my Lady's maid has been enjoined not to hurry herself. Her
mistress is beginning to unrobe, without her assistance, but very
leisurely. She unclasps one warm and sparkling jewel from her arm, and
gazes thoughtfully, but far from sadly, upon the picture that is hid
within it. It is the miniature of a handsome man past middle age,
attired in a blue coat and gold buttons; what persons of my Lady's age
would call a decidedly old-fashioned portrait; but it is the likeness
of Sir Robert as her bridegroom. "What a good, kind husband he was,"
thinks she. "How he loved me, and loaded me with favours; how much
he overlooked, how much he forgot--of which others know nothing--for
my sake. How terrible would it be to feel that one had not done one's
poor duty in return for so much love. Thank Heaven, I feel free from
any such charge. If I had not love--that is, first love--to give him
in exchange, I gave him all I had. I gave him genuine affection,
esteem--worship. Everybody knows that; and what is better, my own heart
knows it. It never beat with truer fealty towards him than it beats
to-night. God knows. I live for his children only. What a fine noble boy
is Richard grown; surely, to look upon him, and to say to one's self:
'This is my son,' should be happiness enough for any mother. True,
he is proud; but has he not something to be proud of? He, Sir Richard,
and one of those Lisgards who have ruled at Mirk for twelve generations.
(Here a quiet smile stole over my Lady's features.) They said with
reason at those tableaux at the Vanes, that with that helmet on he was
the image of young Sir Maurice, who died at Edgehill with the colours
twisted round him. I wonder if it was his poor mother who had her dead
boy painted so. 'Tis certain that she thought: 'Ah, were he but
alive, there would be no such thing as sorrow more for me.' Yet here
I have him. Ah (here she grew as pale as death), why did I ever let my
Walter be a soldier? What weakness to give way--to the very peril of him
for whom I was so weak! He would have gone to the wars themselves
but for good Dr Haldane, through whom (thanks to the Duke) he was not
gazetted to the corps he had applied for. Why did he not choose the bar,
like his elder brother? How he would have moved men's hearts to mercy
with that winning tongue! Or why did he not become God's messenger--I
am sure he has an angel's face--and carry the news those bells are
telling of to shipwrecked souls? Oftentimes, when, as a child, he knelt
beside me to say his prayers, his very looks have seemed to make the
action more sacred. Goodness seemed better worth when he was praying for
it, and heaven no home for saints unless he shared it! God grant he may
grow up a good man!
"Then Letty, too--what mother's wealth must I possess since that
sweet girl is not the chief of it, the central jewel of my crown? When
matched with others of her age--with this Rose Aynton, for example--how
bright and fair she shews! Not but that Rose is a good girl,
doubtless; accomplished, too, beyond her years, and far beyond her
opportunities--she sparkles like a crystal cut in ten thousand facets;
but my own Letty is the flawless diamond, bright and pure as light
itself. What blessings are these three! May Heaven keep them always as
I deem them now. I wish my Walter were a little less impulsive; but the
darling boy is young. As for dear Richard, I have no fears for him. The
proud lad will find some noble helpmate, meet to----Great Heaven! what
is that?"
A burst of melody without fell suddenly upon the midnight air, and at
the same moment the chamber-door opened to the touch of Mistress Forest,
her Ladyship's confidential maid. "I beg your pardon, my Lady, if I
startled you; but I knocked twice, and could not make you hear."
"It was not you, Mary, that startled me," returned Lady Lisgard;
"it was the sudden music. The Christmas Waits, as I suppose?"
"Yes, my Lady. They came up from the village a little while ago,
and have been staying in the servants-hall for the clock to strike
twelve."
"I trust they have all had supper?"
"You may be sure of that, my Lady. Mrs Welsh is as openhanded (with
your Ladyship's property) as any cook in the county; nor is
George Steve a likely man to sit thirsty while he sees others drink.
One would think that a public-housekeeper should have drinking enough at
home; but--pardon, my Lady--I am making complaints which, however
just, I know you dislike to hear, and, besides, I am interrupting the
carol."
Earthly friends will change and falter,
Earthly hearts will vary;
He is born that cannot alter,
Of the Virgin Mary.
Born to-day--
Raise the lay;
Born to-day--
Twine the bay.
Jesus Christ is born to suffer,
Born for you--born for you;
Holly, strew:
Jesus Christ was born to conquer,
Born to save--born to save;
Laurel, wave:
Jesus Christ was born to govern,
Born a king--born a king;
Bay-wreaths, bring:
Jesus Christ was born of Mary,
Born for all. Well befall Hearth and Hall.
Here the manly but not unmelodious voices exchanged their verse for
prose, if Christmas good-wishes can be said to be mere prose. "A merry
Christmas and a happy New Year to your Ladyship, and many on 'em!"
Lady Lisgard moved to the window with a smile, and drawing the curtain
aside, threw up the sash. On the white lawn beneath, stood five dark
figures, bearing various instruments of music, and one a huge horn
lantern, the light of which glinted upon the laurels. It was impossible
to recognise the features of the rest, as they stood, cap in hand,
notwithstanding the still driving snow, awaiting her Ladyship's reply;
but she addressed them each by name nevertheless.
"Mr Steve, I thank you kindly. Henry Ash, I am glad to find you in
good voice again. John Lewis and Peter Stone--if I am not mistaken.
Neighbours and friends all, I thank you very much. But it is a cold
night for caroling, and I hope you have been taken care of within. A
merry Christmas to you and a happy New Year." There was a tremor in my
Lady's voice, although she spoke with such particularity, which shewed
how deeply she was moved.
"God bless your Ladyship," returned the voices, disorderly as
to unison, but each one of itself distinct and clear as
file-firing.--"God bless Sir Richard, and send him a fair bride.--God
bless Master Walter's handsome face.--God bless Miss Letty."
Lady Lisgard closed the window, but as she did so, dropped the heavy
curtain between herself and the lighted chamber, so that she could still
look out, but without being seen. The curtain, too, cut her off from the
observation of her maid within. "Who is the fifth man that bears the
lantern, Mary?" asked her Ladyship in a tone of carelessness very
unsuited to the expression of her face, which all in a moment had grown
pinched and terror-stricken, as though it hungered for some reply that
it yet dreaded to hear.
"Nobody as you know, my Lady--nor indeed as I know, for the matter
of that. He's a stranger in these parts, who's putting up at the
Lisgard Arms. He only came for a few days last week, walking across
the country for all the world like a pedler--a way he says he learned in
foreign parts; but Steve with his odd ways has taken his fancy, so that
he stays on. A very well-spoken sort of person he is too, although the
sea, it seems, has been his calling, which is a rough trade. However, he
has made it answer--according at least to Mr Steve. Any way, he flings
his money about free enough, and indeed is what I call rather too fond
of treating folks. He is good company himself, they say, and a favourite
with everybody he comes across, which is a very dangerous thing--that
is," added Mistress Forest, correcting herself, "unless one is a
gentleman, like handsome Master Walter."
"You don't--remember--this--this person's name, Mary, do you?"
asked Lady Lisgard.
"No, strange to say, I don't, my Lady; although but a moment ago it
was on the tip of my tongue. It is something like Hathaway." A trace
of colour once more returns to my Lady's cheek, and her breath, which,
by reason perhaps of the confined space in which she stands, has seemed
to be stifled during the narration of her maid, now comes and goes with
a little less of effort.
"That is his voice, I reckon, my Lady--yes, I thought so--and the new
carol which he has been teaching the choir."
O'er the hill and o'er the vale
Come three kings together,
Caring nought for snow and hail,
Cold, and wind, and weather;
Now on Persia's sandy plains,
Now where Tigris swells with rains,
They their camels tether.
Now through Syrian lands they go,
Now through Moab, faint and slow,
Now o'er Edom's heather.
"Ah, now I've got it, my Lady," cried Mistress Forest
triumphantly. "It isn't Hathaway. He's the man they were talking
of in the servants-hall as has just bought the windmill of old Daniels,
and that was how I confused them. The stranger's name is Derrick--a
Mr Derrick."
My Lady's dimpled hand flew to her heart, and would have pressed
against it had she had any strength to do so. Her limbs, however, were
nerveless, and shook as if she had the ague. But for the window-seat,
she must have dropped; and as it was, leaned, huddled up against it, a
shapeless form, decked in gray satin and pearls indeed, but as unlike
my Lady as those poor wretches whom we strangle for a show are unlike
themselves, who seem to lose, the instant that the fatal bolt is drawn,
all fellowship with the human, and become mere bundles of clothes. The
drop had fallen, and without warning, from under Lady Lisgard's feet,
but unhappily the victim was conscious, and not dead.
CHAPTER III. ONLY "THE HEART."
|IGNORANT of the ruin it had wrought, the rich full voice of the
stranger still rang forth, manifestly to the admiration of the
confidential maid, since her nimble tongue failed to interrupt its
melody. She was not displeased that her lady too was listening with such
unbroken attention, and probably also looking out upon the singer;
for Mr Derrick was a very "proper man"--at all events in external
appearance--and had shewn himself in the servants-hall a while ago by
no means unconscious of the personal charms of Mistress Forest, which,
although mature, were still by no means despicable. A few years younger
than my Lady herself, Mary had been treated by Time at least with equal
courtesy; her figure was plump, her eyes were bright, her voice, which,
if not absolutely musical, could reach some very high notes, and upon
occasion, was clear and cheery. One would have said she would have been
too talkative to have suited my Lady's grave and quiet ways; but this
was not so. Lady Lisgard had that blessed gift of being able not
to listen unless it pleased her to do so, which enables so many
conscientious persons to speak favourably of sermons; all the avalanche
of her maid's eloquence passed clean over her head, and suffered her
to pursue her own meditations at the easy tribute of an appreciating nod
when all was ended. Even had she been much more inconvenienced by the
debris of words, her tormentor would have been freely forgiven.
The affection between mistress and maid was deep and genuine, and had
extended over more than half their lifetime.
Mary Forest was the daughter of a fisherman at Coveton, the village
on whose sandy beach Sir Robert had picked up his bride. To old Jacob
Forest's cottage, the human flotsam and jetsam had been conveyed,
and upon Mary, then almost a child, had much of its tending at first
devolved. The kindly little nurse soon won the regard of her patient,
cut off by that one night's storm from kith and kin, for this emigrant
ship had contained all that were near or dear to her on earth, and
ready as a babe to clasp the tendrils of love about whoever shewed her
kindness. Removed from the cottage to the rectory, where the clergyman
and his wife welcomed her very hospitably, first, as a poor human waif,
that claimed some lodgment ere she could decide upon her future calling,
for a short time after that as their nursery governess, and finally as
guest and inmate pending those arrangements of her betrothed husband
which subsequently took her to France, Lucy Gavestone--for that was the
name by which my Lady was then known--did not forget little Mary and her
loving ministrations. She asked and easily obtained permission of
Sir Robert that the girl should accompany her to the semi-scholastic
establishment at Dijon in which he had decided to place her previous
to their marriage. This she accordingly did; and many a strange
reminiscence unshared by others (itself a great knitter of the bond of
friendship) had mistress and maid in common. The fortunes of the latter
of course rose with those of the former, and of all the household at
Mirk Abbey there was none in higher trust than Mary Forest, nor more
certain of the envied position she held, since the affection of my Lady
set her above the machinations of that Nemesis of favourite servants, a
Domestic Cabal. Those natural enemies, the butler and the cook, had even
shaken hands together for the purpose of compassing Mary's downfall,
but their combined endeavours had only obtained for a reward her
sovereign forgiveness and (I am afraid I must add) contempt.
In a word, Mary Forest was as happy in her circumstances as any woman
at her time of life could expect to be whose title of "Mistress" was
only brevet rank. She had subjugated many other male folks beside the
butler (the ancient coachman, for example, with the back view of whose
broad shoulders and no neck the Lisgard family had been familiar for
half a century), but such victories had not at all been owing to her
charms. By them, hitherto, Man had been an unconquered animal, and this
was the knot in the otherwise smooth surface of Mary's destiny which
no amount of planing (within her philosophy) could make even. She
had been wooed, of course (what woman of twoscore, according to her own
account, has not?), but hitherto the suitors had not been eligible, or
her own ideas had been too ambitious. The time had now arrived with her
when compromise begins to be expedient, and high expectations abate.
Matrimonial opportunities at the Abbey were few and far between. She
had not received such marked attention from anybody for months as this
stranger, living upon his own means at the Lisgard Arms, had paid her
that very night in the servants-hall. No wonder, then, that while he
sang, she should for once be content to be a listener.
O'er the hill and o'er the vale
Each king bears a present;
Wise men go a child to hail,
Monarchs seek a peasant;
And a star in front proceeds,
Over rocks and rivers leads,
Shines with beams incessant.
Therefore onward, onward still,
Ford the stream, and climb the hill--
Love makes all things pleasant.
"There, now, I call that very pretty, my Lady," exclaimed Mistress
Forest, as the last cadence died away; "and a very pretty sentiment at
the end--'Love makes all things pleasant;' although, for my part,
I know nothing about that, thank Heaven, and prefer to be my own
mistress--that is, with the exception of your Ladyship, to obey whom is
a labour of love. I am sure there are few husbands for whom I would give
up such a service as yours, my Lady. I wish Mr What's-his-name--dear
me, how stupid of me--ah, Derrick! It's rather a pretty name too;
don't you think so, my Lady? I wish this Mr Derrick would sing
us another song. He has a very beautiful voice, and I am sure his
expression--don't you think so, my Lady? Ahem. No; I hear them moving
off. Well, he will be in the choir to-morrow morning, that's sure. Had
you not better come to the fire, my---- Ah, great Heaven! Mistress, my
dear darling mistress, what is the matter? Let me ring for help!"
It was impossible to misunderstand my Lady's "No," although it was
not articulate.
Huddled up, as I have said, in the space between the curtain and the
window-seat, white and cold as the snow without, voiceless and almost
breathless as her maid found her upon venturing to draw aside the heavy
damask folds between them, such a look of agonised apprehension yet shot
from her eyes as at once to prevent Mistress Forest from putting her
design with respect to the bell into effect; nay, more, having assisted
my Lady to the sofa, she rightly interpreted a second glance in the
direction of the door, to mean "Lock it," and this she did even
before arranging the cushions, which would have been the first action
with most persons of her class. Mary Forest, although a babbler, was
no fool, and she perceived immediately that the distress which was
agitating her beloved mistress was at least as much mental as physical.
Once before, and only once, she had known my Lady to be what females
call "overcome"--that was upon the eve of her marriage with Sir
Robert; there was much similarity between the two attacks, but the
present was far more violent. In the first instance, she had been told
by her Ladyship that it was owing to "the heart," which was
fitting enough under her then circumstances--but now when there was
no bridegroom-expectant to flutter that organ, it did seem singular
certainly. Doubtless her mistress would speak presently, and afford
the fullest information; in the meantime there was nothing for it but
silence and sal volatile.
My Lady's eyes are closed, and her features pale and still as marble,
but her lips are a little parted. With her white hands thus crosswise
over her bosom, she looks, thinks the confidential maid--for all the
world like that Dame Lisgard in the chancel, by the side of whose
marble couch her twelve fair children kneel, and take their mother's
ceaseless blessing. All twelve so near of an age, and so marvellously
alike, thanks to the skill of the sculptor, that one would have thought
the whole dozen--but that four, as Mistress Forest has read in Portents
and Prodigies, is the extreme limit--had made their simultaneous
arrival in the world. Stiff and cold almost as marble are my Lady's
limbs, blue-veined like it and rounded; but by degrees, as Mary rubs
them steadily, their life returns.
"Thank you, thank you," murmurs her Ladyship. "I feel better now;
but" (this with effort) "I wish to be left alone."
"Alone, my Lady! I dare not leave you thus, without even knowing what
ails you."
"Nothing ails me now, Mary--nothing." Lady Lisgard made a feint of
smiling, but kept her eyelids shut. She did not dare to let her maid
read what was written in her eyes.
"Was it your poor heart, again, madam?"
"Ay, my poor heart!" My Lady was speaking truth there. Among the
thousand millions born to suffer on this earth, there was not one
upon that Christmas Eve in mental agony more deep than hers. The blow
received had been so terrible and unexpected, that it had at first half
stupified all feeling; the real torture was now commencing, when she was
about to realise the full extent of her injuries. Lady Lisgard was not
without courage; but she was no Indian warrior to desire a spectator
of such torments. "I must be alone, dear Mary," repeated she. "Be
sure you breathe no word of this to any one. Say, however, that I am not
very well. The cold when I opened that window to the Waits"--here she
visibly shuddered--"seems to have frozen me to the marrow--you may
tell them I have taken cold. I shall not be down to breakfast."
"And I should recommend you to stay indoors, my dear (as I hope to
persuade Miss Letty to do), although it is Christmas Day," said Mary
tenderly, as she made up the fire before leaving the room; "for the
church is far from warm."
"I shall not go to church," said Lady Lisgard, with a decision
that reassured her attendant, and enabled her to wish her mistress
"good-night" without much apprehension.
"He will be in the choir to-morrow morning," was the thought which
was crossing the minds of mistress and maid at the same instant.
CHAPTER IV. SIR RICHARD GAINS HIS POINT.
|I DON'T know how it was in the Monkish times in England, but it appears
that the keeping of religious days--always excepting the Sabbath--is not
in accordance with the genius of this country as it exists at present.
By general habit, we are devout, or certainly reverent; and yet the
majority seem unable to discriminate between a fast and a festival.
Christmas Day, for example, is kept by the evangelical folks exactly
like Sunday, which is with them very much the reverse of a feast-day.
With the High Church people, again, it is a Holiday, to be enjoyed after
a certain peculiar fashion of their own; while the great mass of the
population outrage both these parties by treating half the day as a fast
and the other half as a festival. After morning church, it is generally
understood that one may enjoy one's self--that is, within the limit of
the domestic circle. There is the rub. It is not every disposition which
can appreciate forfeits and snap-dragon. My own respected grandfather
used to thank Heaven with much devotion that he had always been a
domestic man, who knew how to enjoy a peaceful Christmas in the bosom of
his family; but then he always went to sleep immediately after dinner,
and nobody ventured to wake him until the servants came in to prayers,
after which he went to bed.
It is a pleasant sight, says Holy Writ, to see brethren dwelling
together in unity; but the remark would not have been put on record had
the spectacle been a very common one. It is a sad confession to make,
but I think most of us must own that the "family gathering" in
the country, even at Christmas-tide, is not the most agreeable sort of
social entertainment. There is too much predetermination to be jolly
about such festivities, too much resolution to put up with Polly's
temper and Jack's rudeness, and to please grandpapa (who is funded)
at all hazards. When we find ourselves in the up-train again after that
domestic holiday-week, we are not altogether displeased that it is over,
and secretly congratulate ourselves that there has not been a row. I
am, of course, speaking of ordinary folks, such as the world is mainly
composed of, and not of such exemplary people as my readers and myself.
We have no family jealousies, no struggles for grandpapa's favour,
no difficulties in having common patience with Polly, no private
opinion--if he was not our brother--about Jack; no astonishment at
Henry's success, no envy at Augusta's prospects. But with the
majority of grown-up brothers and sisters, this is not so. Since they
parted from one another under the paternal roof, their lines of life
have diverged daily; their interests, so far from being identical, have
become antagonistic. Margaret is as nice as ever, but Penelope is not
a bit improved, and yet one must seem to be as glad to see one as the
other. One must not only forgive, but forget; it is not (unhappily)
necessary that we should be polite, but we must be affectionate; nay, we
must not only be affectionate--grandpapa will think it extremely odd if
we are not "gushing."
The Lisgard family circle was not large, though, as we have seen, there
was room in it for disagreement; moreover, there was not a "dead
set" of domestic element, the consanguinity being relieved by the
presence of Miss Rose Aynton. If grandpapa were wise, this should always
be the case; for it prevents Courtesy from taking leave of the company,
which she is only too apt to do, under the mistaken notion that near
relations can afford to do without her. It was with no such intention,
however, that my Lady had asked Miss Aynton to visit Mirk. She would
have thought it hard, indeed, if her two sons could not have spent a
week together under the same roof without the presence of a stranger to
prevent their quarrelling. Rose had been a school-friend of Letty, and
the latter young lady had asked permission to invite her young friend
to the Abbey for Christmas. She had no home of her own to go to, poor
thing, having neither father nor mother. She lived with her aunt, Miss
Colyfield, a fashionable old lady in Mayfair, very popular among her
acquaintance, but a sort of person, not uncommon in that locality, whom
it is not altogether charming to reside with as a dependent. Miss
Aynton was evidently accustomed to suppression. It made a man positively
indignant to see one whose youth and intelligence entitled her to be
the mistress of all who approached her, so humble, so unegotistic, so
grateful. It was evident that she had plenty of natural good spirits,
and every faculty for enjoyment, if she had only dared exhibit them. Her
very accomplishments, which were numerous, were timidly concealed, and
peeped forth one by one, almost, as it seemed, by compulsion. She might
have left Mirk, for instance, without a soul knowing of her taste for
ecclesiastical decoration, if it had not been for a sore throat which
prevented Letty from superintending the Christmas ornamentations in the
chancel.
"Can't you do it, my dear?" said Letty, a little peevish at
the disappointment, and hopeless that her place could be satisfactorily
filled by a London-bred girl like Rose, who had never seen
holly-berries except in the greengrocers' shops, or at the artificial
florist's. "Now, do try, and Richard and Walter will both help."
"I will do my best, dear," this young lady had answered simply.
And never had anything so beautiful been seen in the county, as was the
result of her efforts. So much was said of them that Letty had ventured
to go to church that morning, despite her ailment, and was as earnest
in her praise as any in the congregation. There was no such thing as
jealousy in her composition, and the success of her friend was a genuine
pleasure to her.
"O mamma, you have missed such a sight!" cried she, as Lady Lisgard
made her first appearance that morning at the luncheon-table, looking a
little grave and pale, but gracious and dignified as a queen in exile,
as usual. "Not only the chancel, but the whole church a perfect
bower of evergreens, and everything so exquisitely done! The pillars,
alternately ivy and laurel; and under the gallery, beautiful texts
in holly-berries set in green. As for the wall at the back of the
altar--the decorations there are such that it makes one cry to think
they are ever to be taken down again. Oh, I do hope you will feel well
enough, dear mamma, to come to church this afternoon and see them."
"Really, Lady Lisgard," said Miss Aynton, blushing deeply, and with
her soft eyes looking very much inclined to be tearful, "you must not
believe all that Lefty's kindness induces her to say about me."
"Nay, but it's true, mother," broke forth Sir Richard. "I never
could have dreamt of anything so beautiful being made out of leaves and
berries. The old church looks enchanted, and Miss Aynton is the fairy
that has done it."
"Sir Richard suggested the centre design himself," returned Rose
gravely; "and the fact is, I am nothing but a plagiarist in the whole
affair. Our curate in Park Street gives himself up to floral religion,
and dresses up his church in a dozen different garbs according to
the season. I am one of its volunteer tiring-women, and am therefore
accustomed to the business--that is all."
"It is very honest of you to tell us that, Rose," said my Lady
approvingly.
"Yes, mamma," broke in Letty; "but it was very wicked of her
not to tell Mr Mosely, who came to thank her in the churchyard after
service. He actually made an allusion to her in his sermon--talked about
her 'pious hands.' She never told him one word about this London
curate."
Letty's laugh rang merrily out as she thus twitted her friend, but her
brothers did not echo it. Neither of them relished this mention of the
Mayfair clergyman. They had each in turn enjoyed that religious work, in
which they had been fellow-labourers with Miss Aynton, and each perhaps
flattered himself that she had been most pleased when his own fingers
were looping the berries for her, or holding the ivy while she fastened
it in its place. Of course there was nothing serious between either of
them and herself. Sir Richard would naturally look higher for a bride
than to the dependent niece of a fickle old woman of fashion; while as
to Walter, with his comparatively small fortune and expensive tastes, it
was absolutely necessary that he should "marry money," and not mere
expectations. Still, no man is altogether pleased to hear that a young
girl he admires is engaged to somebody else; and although this had not
been said of Rose, yet Mayfair curates are dangerous persons, and church
decoration (as they were aware by recent experience) is a fascinating
occupation when indulged in by both sexes at the same time.
So Letty had all the laughter to herself.
"How strange it was to hear the people when they first came in,"
continued she. "Their 'Ohs!' and Ahhs!' and 'Well I nevers!'
were quite irrepressible."
"Especially the gentleman in the gallery, who expressed his opinion
that it was for all the world like May-day," observed Walter
slily. "Miss Aynton's chef-d'oeuvre reminded him, it seems, of
Jack-in-the-Green."
"Yes, was it not shocking, mamma?" exclaimed Letty. "He spoke
quite loud. I shouldn't suppose that the creature had ever been in a
church before. How he did stare about him!"
"You must have been looking in his direction yourself, miss,"
returned the young dragoon, "as, indeed, were all the female part of
the congregation. We don't see such awful beards as his in Mirk church
every Sunday."
"How touchy dear Walter is upon the subject of beards," observed
Letty demurely.
The captain's smooth face coloured like a girl's, while Miss Rose
Aynton sought concealment in her pocket-handkerchief. Even Lady Lisgard
forced herself to smile at the embarrassment of her handsome boy. But
Sir Richard did not smile; he was not on sufficiently good terms with
his younger brother to enjoy even so innocent a joke at his expense.
"You have not yet seen this distinguished stranger, I suppose,
mamma?" resumed Letty, without whom--what with Rose's shyness and
the coldness between the two young men--the conversation would have
languished altogether.
"What stranger do you mean, my dear?" said my Lady coldly.
"Why, the man that came with the Waits last night, and sang beneath
your window. Surely you must have noticed his voice, so different from
poor old Ash and the rest of them."
"Now you mention it, Letty, I think I did remark that there was a
strange singer among them. He had a voice like Mr Steve's."
"Very probably, my dear mother," observed Walter laughing; "for
they both use the same tuning-key--the Spigot. Steve is said to be quite
jealous because this gentleman from foreign parts can take two glasses
to his one, although it cannot be added that he doesn't shew it. Steve
can look like a Methodist parson when he pleases, whereas his new friend
has made a sacrifice of his very countenance to Bacchus; and yet he must
have been a handsome fellow at one time.--Don't you think so, Miss
Aynton?"
"I really scarcely looked at him," returned the young lady
addressed. "I should hesitate to pass an opinion upon this
distinguished----"
"O Rose," interrupted Letty archly; "how dare you!--Why, Walter,
she told me herself, only five minutes ago, while we were taking off our
bonnets, that she thought his expression 'magnificent '--that was
her very word--and that she would like to take him in chalks."
"I must confess," said Rose, "without venturing to call it
good-looking or otherwise, that his countenance, artistically speaking,
seems to me very striking. He is just one of those wicked people,
I fancy, in whom one feels a sort of interest in spite of one's
self.--Now, don't you think so, Sir Richard?"
"My dear Miss Aynton," returned the baronet with an air of hauteur
that neutralised the familiarity implied by his words, "if this person
has won your sympathy, he is fortunate indeed; but I must say that
I don't see that he deserves it. His beard, which is certainly a
handsome one, has also--as it seems to me--the great advantage of
obscuring half his countenance. I confess, I think he looks to be a
scoundrel of the first salt-water."
"That's what Rose means!" cried Letty, clapping her hands.
"He's one of those dear handsome villains who used to--ah, infest--yes,
that's the phrase--who used to infest the Spanish Main. How charmingly
mysterious was the very place in which they carried on their profession!
If it was not for seasickness, I should like to have had something to do
in the Spanish Main myself. I have not the shadow of a doubt that this
Mr Derrick--evidently an assumed name---- What's the matter, dearest
mother?"
My Lady had uttered a low cry, such as is evoked by sudden and acute
physical pain.
"Nothing, my love--nothing: it was a passing spasm, nothing more. A
tinge of my old rheumatism again, I fear, which is a sign of old age,
and therefore a malady I do not wish to be taken notice of.--Now,
don't distress yourselves, my dears"--for all had risen with looks
of genuine and affectionate anxiety, except Miss Aynton, who had rapidly
poured out a glass of wine.--"Thank you, Rose; that was all I wanted.
Nobody offered me any sherry, so I thought I would try whether I
could not obtain it medicinally.--What were you saying, Letty, about
this--this person?"
"I was merely remarking that he had probably been a buccaneer,
mamma."
"In other words, that he deserves hanging," observed Sir Richard
gruffly. "I hope he will soon take himself out of the parish, for we
have got tipplers enough in it already."
"Dear, dear, dear!" said Letty sedately; "to make such an
observation as that, just after mamma has been craving for sherry!
Besides, how can this gentleman annoy you, Sir Richard? He isn't
come here to dispute the title, is he?"
My Lady kept her lips closed this time; but an anguish passed over her
face that would have been easy to see, had not the eyes of those at
table been otherwise engaged.
Letty was looking at her friend, in hopes that she should get her to
laugh at her high and mighty brother; Rose did not dare look up, for
fear she should do so. Walter, his handsome lips slightly curled, was
contemptuously watching the baronet, who stared, Sphinx-like, right
before him, as was his custom whenever he was in one of his autocratic
humours, as at present.
"I don't choose to have persons of that sort in the parish," said he
with icy distinctness.
"But, my dear Richard, you can't turn him out," reasoned Letty,
rather vexed by an exhibition of her brother's pride before her
school-friend beyond what she had calculated upon. "He has a right to
stop at the Lisgard Arms as long as he pleases."
"And I have a right to turn Steve out as a tenant"----
"You have nothing of the kind, Richard," interposed Walter quietly;
"you have no more right than I--not even legal right, for the inn is
not yet yours, and as for moral right, it would be the most monstrous
piece of territorial oppression ever heard of out of Poland. So long as
the man behaves himself"----
"He does not behave himself," put in Sir Richard angrily. "He is
a drunkard, and a brawler in church."
"Gracious mercy! how you must have been looking up Burn's Justice.
But you will not be a magistrate, a custos rotulorum, till you are of
age, remember, so that he is safe for six months. In the meantime, he
certainly means to stay here. He is so good as to say he likes Mirk, I
understand; and the village folks like him. He is a great addition to
the choir; and I shall certainly ask him, in case he remains, to join
our Mirk volunteers: Steve tells me he is a most admirable shot with a
rifle, and will do the corps credit."
"That is all the worse," quoth Sir Richard violently; "he is only
the more likely to be a poacher. We have more than enough of that sort
already, and I beg that you will give none such your encouragement."
"Encouragement!" returned Walter airily. "What patronage have I
to offer? I am not Sir Richard, who can make a man happy with a word."
"Very well," continued the baronet with suppressed passion, "let
him take care how he trespasses upon the Abbey-lands--that's all."
"Nay, you'll see him at the Abbey itself," laughed Walter
carelessly, "and that pretty often, unless I quite misinterpreted
Mistress Forest's manner when she parted from him at the Lych Gate: I
never saw two people more affectionate upon so short an acquaintance."
"A most ineligible suitor, I am sure," broke forth the baronet. "I
trust Mary is not fool enough to disgrace herself at her time of life by
any such alliance."
"She is almost old enough to choose for herself," responded Walter
drily. "The selection of a husband for one's servant is scarcely
the privilege of even a lord of the manor, and when the servant is not
one's own"----
"I believe, sir," interrupted Sir Richard hastily, "that I am only
speaking the sentiments of her mistress, in whose hands, of course, the
matter lies.--Mother, do you not agree with me that it would be
very unwise to encourage any attachment between Mary Forest and this
reprobate stranger, Derrick?"
It was plain my Lady had not recovered from her late ailment, of
whatever nature the attack might have been; otherwise, she would have
interfered between the brothers before a direct appeal for her decision
had been made by either of them, it being a rule with her never to place
herself in an invidious position with respect to her children. To the
astonishment of the baronet himself, however, Lady Lisgard now forced
her pale lips to utter deliberately enough: "I think it would be very
unwise."
"And therefore," pursued Sir Richard, hastening to push his
advantage, "it would be worse than unwise, it would be absolute
cruelty, since you do not intend her to marry this fellow, that
opportunities should be afforded her of meeting him under the same roof.
I do not say that his offence of brawling in church this morning is a
sufficient ground of itself for forbidding him the house, although
to most persons with any sense of decency it would be a serious
misdemeanour: but would it not be well, under these particular
circumstances, to treat it so?"
"Yes," returned my Lady, rising from the table, white as a ghost,
"you are right, Richard; let this Mr Derrick be forbidden the
house."
CHAPTER V. MASTER WALTER.
|THE day after Christmas Day was friendly to the fox; in other words, a
hard frost; and since Miss Rose Aynton and Letty had declined to play
at billiards with Walter until the afternoon--for it is vicious (in the
country) to indulge in that pastime in the morning, as it is to play at
cards before candle-light--that young gentleman, being no reader, felt
the time rather heavy on his hands, and strolled into the village to
get rid of it. The snow had ceased to fall, but not before, like a good
housekeeper when the family has left town, it had covered up everything
very carefully, except the tops of the chimneys, through which the
tidings of good-cheer rolled forth in dusky columns from every cottage;
for there were no abject poor in Mirk, thanks to my Lady, or any that
lacked victuals at that joyous season.
The Lisgards had ever been a free-handed race, as generous out of doors
as hospitable within; and their influence for good had been felt for
generations throughout the village. I do not say that they expected no
repayment; their rule was paternal, and they looked for something like
filial obedience in return. If a villager had passed any member of that
august family without pulling his hair, as though it were a bell-handle,
in token of respect, it would have been considered a sign of revolution,
and they would have congratulated themselves that the yeomanry were in
a state of efficiency. The feudal system was still in vogue at Mirk, but
tempered not only by excellent beef-tea in sickness, and port wine
from the Abbey cellar during convalescence, but by the best Gothic
architecture, as applied to cottages. If eleven human beings did
sometimes sleep in a single room, and the domestic arrangements
were inferior to those which Mr Chifney of the Farm provided for his
race-horses, the tenement looked outside very picturesque, as seen from
the Abbey windows. Nay, it must be owned that even this inconvenience
of overcrowding was rare in the home-village, in comparison with other
places on the Lisgard estate, not so near the family seat, about which
everything was in externals, at least, becomingly spick and span.
Dr Haldane, indeed, who had property of his own, and could afford to
entertain political opinions at variance with those in favour at the
Abbey, had been of old accustomed irreverently to adapt a certain
popular nursery ballad to the state of things at Mirk.
Who built the infant school so red?
Who set that striking-clock o'erhead,
To tell us all the time for bed?
The Lisgards.
Who made, and at such great expense,
Around our pond that iron fence,
To keep the pigs and boys from thence?
The Lisgards, &c.
In short, Mirk was a pet hamlet, and exhibited a hundred tokens of its
patron's favour. It was surely only right and proper, therefore, that
all the votes in the village at election-time, except the doctor's,
went the same way with the squire's, and that even in social
matters he exercised unquestioned sway. Mirk was as respectable as
the brotherhood of Quakers, and was rendered so by the same simple
machinery; any one in the place who shewed a disposition to be otherwise
was immediately turned out. Did a man drink, so as to cause public
disturbance, or pick up sticks (to save himself trouble) out of
the park-fences--or, worse than all, did he Poach--were it but a
pheasant's egg--he received the most peremptory notice to quit the
model village. The issuing of these ukases of banishment had been, now
and then, a severe trial to the popularity of the Lisgards; but it
had overlived all such acts--nay, more, even its favouritism, that
seemingly indispensable element of the feudal system, had been forgiven
it. Nobody now complained that George Steve, who notoriously never went
to bed quite sober, still continued tenant of the Lisgard Arms; while
Jacob Flail and Joseph Dibble had been condemned, with their families,
to banishment for life for a less habitual commission of the same
offence.
Much less did it strike the villagers that it was inconsistent in a
landlord, so careful for the morality of his people, to let so large a
portion of the Abbey Farm to a trainer of race-horses, of which there
were at present upwards of thirty in Mirk; and in summer, when the
Downland above was fit for their exercise, there were often twice as
many. But then Mr Chifney was not like an ordinary trainer; nor did
his jockey-boys, thanks to his strict supervision, behave like ordinary
jockey-boys. They attended divine service on alternate Sundays, and
half-a-dozen of them were in the choir. Mr Mosely (who was Anglican)
had even taken into consideration the advisability of putting these last
into surplices, but Mr Chifney had dissuaded him from that experiment.
They had always been accustomed to the most tight-fitting of garments,
strait-waistcoats, buck-skin breeches, and gaiters--and perhaps he
thought the transition would be too abrupt. Their habits, in some other
respects, were loose, and yet they were suffered to breathe the Lisgard
air. Mr Chifney's boys were like the servants of ambassadors at
foreign courts, who enjoy a separate jurisdiction from that to which the
native inhabitants submit. The law itself--at least in the case of
petty offences--was not called in to punish these young gentlemen; but
I believe they were "colted"--for the whole discipline was
"horsey"--by Mr Chifney's head-groom. I do not know the exact
manner in which this chastisement was inflicted, but it must have
differed from the ordinary method, since they never failed to pursue
their daily equestrian duties as usual. Mr Chifney looked after that
himself, and exceedingly sharp. Nothing went amiss through oversight in
his establishment, and his employers had every reason to put confidence
in him. He left no means untried to insure the success of the costly
animals it was his mission to groom and guard. His very acceptance of
the post of churchwarden had been described by his enemies as an attempt
to "hedge"--to make friends with those powers of good which are
generally supposed, to be antagonistic, if they have anything to do
with it at all, to the profession of horse-racing. It is certain that Mr
Chifney, whose occupations seldom permitted his own attendance at
public worship, never failed to come to church upon those Sundays which
immediately preceded the Derby and the St Leger, and indeed it is very
likely that he treated them (without knowing it) as the eves of his
patron saints' days.
It was to the Abbey Farm that Mr Walter Lisgard was now bound; for to
the young gentlemen of England, what is a more interesting spectacle
than a racing-stable--what is a more charming subject of conversation
than the next Great Event? And who more fitted to afford every
information upon that important topic--if he chose--than Mr Tite
Chifney? If he chose. Therein lay the whole matter; for Mr Chifney
was reticent, as became one intrusted with a hundred thousand pounds'
worth of horseflesh, upon whose performances depended perhaps, in the
aggregate, millions of money. He had put "Master Walter" up to a
"good thing," however, more than once, and the captain had no doubt
but that he would do it again. He never did doubt of his own success
either with man or woman. Confidence, but without swagger, self-content,
but without vanity, were evident enough in those handsome features,
illuminated almost at all times with the desire to please. He lit his
cigar at the hall-door, smoothed away a fallen spark from his sealskin
waistcoat, and took his way down the leafless avenue, humming the
latest lively air, as he crunched the snow beneath his dainty boots.
How different from Sir Richard's measured step and haughty silence,
thought the gatekeeper's wife, as she hastened out of the lodge, from
the side-window of which she had marked her favourite approach. "Never
mind me, Martha," cried he laughing; "I'm tall enough now to lift
the latch for myself. My boots are thicker than yours are--look--and I
have no rheumatism, which, I am afraid, you have not quite got rid of
yet. There--I won't speak a word with you till you go inside. How's
the guidman? Ah, out, is he? How's little Polly? Hullo, Polly, how
you're grown! Why, I daresay she won't kiss me now, as she always
used to do."
"Oh yes, she'll kiss you, Master Walter," answered the old dame;
"there's no harm in kissing o' you; although I wouldn't say
that to my daughter of ne'er another young man in the county.--Come,
lass, you need not blush so, for I've had many a one from the same
young gentleman." And the old dame laughed and chuckled, until that
dread enemy of honest-hearted mirth, the lumbago, twitched her into her
chair.
Polly, a very pretty country lassie, about sixteen, stood pink and
hesitating while the captain removed his cigar, and waited--smiling
demigod--for the promised favour.
"Come, gi'e it to him, and ha' done wi' it," cried the old
lady, exasperated by her torments. Thereupon the girl stepped forward,
head aside. Master Walter met her, touched her soft cheek with his lip,
and as his silken moustache brushed her ear, whispered an airy something
which turned her crimson. There was nothing in the words themselves save
the merest compliment; their magic lay in the tone of him who used them;
so tender, yet so frank, so familiar, and yet so gracious. Then, with a
smile, he bade them both "good-bye," and strolling through the gate,
resumed his interrupted ditty, as though kissing were the most innocent
as well as the most natural of all pastimes; but Polly pressed her
throbbing brow against the pane for its very coolness, and watched him
saunter down the village street with quite a flutter at her heart, and
promised to herself that she would not forget the captain's kiss--no,
not though Joe, the under-gardener, should speak his mind next
"feast" (as it was rumoured in well-informed circles that he
intended to do), and "keep her company" in earnest.
That she was doing no wrong in this was certain, for not only her
mother, but everybody else in Mirk, agreed that there was no sort of
harm in Master Walter, let him do what he might. He had a way of doing
things so very different from others. How the very dogs fawned upon him
as he sauntered on, and the old horse in the straw-yard stretched its
gray head over the gate in hopes of a caress as he went by! How the boys
by the roadside left their Snow-man an unfinished torso, and ran to make
their bows before the good-natured captain, with an eye to largesse,
in the form of a copper scramble; and how the school-girls courtesied,
with admiring awe, as they pictured to themselves how fine a figure
handsome Master Walter must needs cut in gold and scarlet! He had a nod
or a word for almost everybody, young or old; but if his look but lit
upon another's face, it left a pleasure there, as the Sun leaves when
it has shone upon one. Delayed by these reciprocal manifestations
of good-will, like a young prince making a Royal Progress among a
well-affected people, Walter Lisgard at length got free of the village,
and climbing a steep hill (never used by the race-horses even in much
less slippery weather), arrived at his destination, the Abbey Farm. This
was a long, low, ancient building, belonging to one could scarce tell
what date, so pieced, and restored, and added to, had been the original
structure; but when the Abbey was an Abbey, the Abbey Farm had been a
sort of branch-establishment, in the occupation of the monks; there were
traces of their sojourn even now: over the pointed porch yet stood a
cross of stone, though broken; and in the garden, now all white and
hoar, that lay between the house and road, there was a mighty sundial,
carved like a font with noseless saints in niches, and round the rim a
scripture, of which alone the words nox venit could be deciphered. The
night had come, not only upon those who built and blessed such things,
but on the faith which they professed. The very memory of themselves and
it had faded from men's minds. Not one in ten at Mirk--where all had
owned the Abbot for liege-lord, and bowed their heads before his meanest
monk, in token of their soul's humility, but a few centuries back--not
one in ten, I say, could tell even what that niche on the south side
of the communion-table meant, which the learned called Piscina. The
mighty bower that had once been the granary of the Abbey, and to which
the poor had looked with thankful eyes in times of scarcity, still stood
beside the homestead, but the remembrance of its very use was gone; the
only legend clinging to its moss-grown walls was that a Long Parliament
had once held its sittings there. Save the farmhouse and the barn, all
relics of the past had been swept away. Immediately behind them
was quite a town of stables and loose boxes, all of the most modern
construction, and furnished with the latest inventions for equine
comfort. The enormous farmyard, strewn with a thick carpet of clean
straw, was now the exercising-ground for the horses; but in the summer,
a gate at the back of the premises opened immediately upon the grassy
upland, the proximity of which had tempted Mr Tite Chifney to pitch his
tent and enlarge his boundaries at the Abbey Farm. So high had been the
rent he offered for this eligible situation, that the late Sir Robert
had removed his own agricultural head-quarters elsewhere, and suffered
Mr Chifney and his race-horses to occupy the whole place, which was
now the capital of the Houwhyhims--the largest establishment in Great
Britain, wherein man held the secondary position, and the Horse the
principal.
CHAPTER VI. THE RACING-STABLE.
|IT was Mr Chifney in person who admitted Walter Lisgard, after a
precautionary glance at him through a little grating, which doubtless
the monks had used for a similar purpose, although without the same
excuse, for they had never possessed any Derby "cracks" to be
poisoned. Mr Chifney might have been himself a monk but for his apparel,
which, although scrupulously neat and plain, fitted him almost like
war-paint, so that there was not a crease to be seen, except at the
knees, of which he made as much use as the holy fathers themselves did,
though not precisely in the same way. His dark hair was closely cropped,
and a little bald spot on the top of the crown might well have been
taken for a tonsure. Moreover, he had a grave and secretive look, which
would have well enough become one in whom were reposed the secrets of
the Confessional; and when he smiled, he looked sorry for it immediately
afterwards, as though he had given way to a carnal pleasure.
Captain Lisgard shook the trainer's hand with his usual hearty warmth,
and Mr Chifney returned his pressure with unwonted cordiality. He was
accustomed to meet men of a much higher social rank than his present
visitor on something like equal terms; many of them shook hands with
him; all of them treated him with familiarity. The Turf, like the Grave,
levels all distinctions. Between the Lord and the Blackleg (to make an
antithetical use of terms that are not seldom synonymous), there is
but slight partition on that common ground; the widest gulf of
social difference is bridged over, pro tem, by the prospect of an
advantageous bet. How much more, then, was this wont to be the case in
view of the trustworthy "information" which Mr Tite Chifney had
it so often in his power to bestow? Marquises had taken his arm in a
confidential manner before now in the most public places, and dukes had
called him "Tite;" even ladies of the highest fashion had treated
him to pretty speeches, and to what they hoped might turn out
literally "winning ways." But the great trainer estimated all these
condescensions at their true value. He never concealed from himself the
motives that caused these people to be so civil to him; and perhaps he
had seen too much of the turfite aristocracy to be flattered by their
attentions, even had they been disinterested. But Walter Lisgard's
greeting was different from those which he was wont to receive from his
great patrons; there was not only a cordial frankness about it, but a
something of sympathy, conveyed with marvellous tact, in his air and
manner; which seemed to say: "I unfeignedly regret that anything
like friendship should be impossible between us, for I am your social
superior; and yet, how ridiculous a thing it is that this should be so!
I, but the younger brother of a man himself of no great position, and
you, at the head of that profession in which the noblest in the land
take so great and personal an interest." If Mr Chifney did not read
all this, it is certain that so acute an observer could not fail to read
some of it. He was as far from being moved by any considerations not
strictly practical as any man connected with horseflesh; his calling,
too, rendered him as suspicious of his fellow-creatures as a police
detective; but Master Walter's sort of flattery was too subtle for
him. He had always had a liking for this genial young fellow, with
his handsome face and pleasant speech, and who, moreover, rode across
country like a centaur; he was one of his own landlord's family, too,
and the heir-presumptive of the property, whose favour it was just
as well to win and keep; and lastly, the lad had been so unfeignedly
grateful to him for the little hints he had occasionally afforded him,
as well as so wisely reticent about his informant, that he was not
unwilling to help him again to a few "fivers," if he could do so
without the betrayal of professional confidence.
"Come for another 'tip,' eh, Master Walter?" whispered he
good-naturedly as he led the way into the house. "You see I did not
deceive you the last time you were here about Cambyses!"
"No, indeed, you did not, Mr Chifney" (Walter never addressed this
friend of his without the Mister), "and a very great blessing it was
to yours thankfully at a time when he was even more hard-up than usual.
Is your Derby 'crack' visible today? I am poor, but honest. I have
no motive beyond that of curiosity, and if suspected of a concealed
weapon, will submit to be searched."
"Well, Master Walter," grinned the trainer, "I can't say that
I much credit the honesty of anybody myself; but I don't see why you
should not have a look at his majesty, particularly as there is one
coming here this morning already upon the same errand, and I'm sure
I'd as soon oblige you as him--or, indeed, as any man, let it be who
it will."
"You are very kind to say so, Mr Chifney, and still more to mean it,
as I am sure you do; but I feel that I have no right with my bagatelle
of a stake depending upon the matter to take up your time--nay, I must
insist upon throwing my cigar away before entering your house; it is all
very well for Mrs Chifney to give you the privilege of smoking within
doors, but I could not venture to take such a liberty myself. What a
jolly place this is of yours; I always think it is so much snugger than
the Abbey. I should never sit anywhere but in your grand old kitchen,
if I were you."
"Well, the fact is we do sit a good deal in the kitchen," returned Mr
Chifney reddening. "It's warm, you see, although it's large, and my wife
likes to see how things are going on. She's engaged there just at
present, and--you're a great favourite of hers; but I would recommend
you to step in as you go out, instead of now. A queer thing is woman,
Master Walter, and no man can tell how queer till he comes to be
married! Young gals is all sweetness and easily cajoled; but wives--O
lor! Now, it's exactly different with horseflesh, for the brood-mares
one can manage with a little care, and it's only the fillies that give
us trouble, and have such tempers of their own. There; that's a Derby
nag, Blue Ruin, in the cloths yonder, and I believe the Duke would not
sell him for three thousand pounds; but I have told His Grace, as I tell
you, that I wouldn't back the horse even for a place."
"A splendid stepper, too," exclaimed Walter admiringly, as the
beautiful creature paced slowly round the straw-yard, with arching
neck and distended nostrils, as though he were aware of the trainer's
depreciating remarks, and could afford to despise them.
"That's true," rejoined Mr Chifney drily; "but we don't want
steppers, but goers; there's a vast of steppers in this world, both
men and horses.--Now, in that box yonder, there is an animal who, in
my opinion, could give Blue Ruin ten pounds; but you shall judge for
yourself presently. The King's palace is this next one."
And truly, scarce could horse be better housed than was his equine
majesty. No light-house could be more exquisitely clean; no drawing-room
in Mayfair more neat, or better suited to the requirements of its
inhabitant, although of ornament, save the plaited straw that fringed
the royal couch, there was nothing. A dim religious light pervaded this
sanctuary, which was kept at a moderate temperature by artificial means,
while an admirable ventilation prevented the slightest "smell of the
stable" from being perceptible. The object of all this consideration
was a magnificent bay horse, by rule of Liliput, very fitly named The
King, since, if not a head taller than his fellows, he was fully "a
hand." His coat quite shone amid the gloom, and as the key turned in
the door, he pricked his long fine ears, and turned his full eyes upon
his two visitors inquiringly, with far more expression in his lean-jawed
face than is possessed by many a human creature.
"This gives the world assurance of a horse indeed," muttered Walter
to himself as he contemplated this wonder. "Shew me his faults, Mr
Chifney, for his excellences dazzle me."
"Well, sir," whispered the trainer, looking up towards a square hole
in the ceiling, "it is not for me to depreciate 'the crack;' and
there's a boy up yonder--for the horse is never left for a moment,
night or day--who is getting too sharp to live, at least in my stables.
But look at what he stands on."
Most men who ride think it a disgrace not to know all about a horse.
Every man who keeps a pony thinks himself qualified to "pick" out
the winner from any number of thoroughbreds before "the start;" and
when the race is over, protests that he had picked him out in his
own mind, only something (not quite satisfactorily explained) made him
distrust his own judgment, and back a loser.
It was a great temptation to Captain Walter Lisgard, of the 104th Light
Dragoons, to shew himself horse-wise, but he put it from him manfully,
or rather, with strength of mind far beyond that of most men of his
class. "The pasterns seem to be long and strong enough," answered
he, "and the feet neither too large nor too small."
"Just what my lord says," observed the trainer in the same
low tones; "nor can I make him see that there is any degree of
contraction. But he is not your horse, so tell me; look now--is it not
so?"
It was so, or at least it seemed to be so to the captain, as the trainer
returned the faulty member to its proprietor, with the air of a banker
declining a forged cheque.
"It is of small consequence to me," said Walter; "but I shall be
sorry if the winner does not come out of your stable. I took a thousand
to twenty in October, which I can now hedge to great advantage."
"If you take my advice, you will hold on," said Mr Chifney
confidentially. "Twenty pound is little to lose, and what I have shewn
you by no means destroys his chance; moreover, The King will not be
deposed in the betting. I shall be surprised if, in the paddock, they
lay more than three to one."
"You were going to tell me something, Mr Chifney, only you thought
better of it," said Captain Lisgard, laying his finger upon the
other's coat-cuff as they emerged from the royal presence. "And yet
you trusted me when I was but a boy at school, and I never abused your
confidence."
"What a fellow you are to read a chap!" returned the trainer
admiringly. "Burst my buttons, but you are a cunning one, Master
Walter! It is true that I was thinking of letting you into a little
secret--though, after all, it mayn't be worth much. Let us come on
to the tan-gallop for five minutes, for nowhere else can we get out of
earshot of these boys." With that, passing through a paddock, itself
provided with a straw-ride, so that the race-horses need not set foot
upon the frost-bound turf as they issued forth to exercise, Mr
Chifney led the way to the upland, where a broad brown road of tan
was permanently laid on the level down. Here the trainer paused, and
speaking aloud for the first time, observed in a solemn tone: "Now,
look you, true as fate, I would tell no other man but you. What I said
about The King's feet was on the square: but that ain't all.
There's a horse here as nobody ever heard of, and yet who's a real
good un. He's the one that I said could give Blue Ruin ten pounds.
You may get two hundred to one against him at this blessed moment, and
he'll be at twenty to one before April Fool Day. It's the best
thing we've had at Mirk yet, and---- Ah, the devil! here comes the man
I was expecting; remember, we were talking about The King."
"Morning, Mr Chifney," said the new-comer, nodding familiarly to
the trainer.--"And morning to you, sir, if you ain't too proud to
accept it."
He was a large-built middle-aged man, with a sunburnt countenance,
generally good-humoured enough, notwithstanding the presence of a
truculent red beard, but upon this occasion, somewhat sullen, and even
defiant. Walter recognised in him the stranger stopping at the Lisgard
Arms, at once, and was at no loss to account for his displeasure. He
had doubtless received some hint that his presence at the Abbey would
not be welcome.
"Good-morning, Mr Derrick," returned the captain cheerfully.
"There is no pride about me, since, unfortunately, I have nothing to
be proud of; but if there was, why should I not return a civil reply to
a civil speech?"
"Oh, because I ain't good enough to speak to," answered the other
scornfully. "Because I ain't a gentleman, forsooth, like your high
and mighty family. But the fact is, sir, although I have got decent
blood in my veins myself, I come from a country where we don't care
that"--and he snapped his fingers with a noise equal to the crack of
a whip--"for who is a man's father, unless the man himself is worth
his salt."
"That, then, must have been the reason why this good-for-nothing
ruffian left that country," thought the captain; but he answered with
humility: "Then, I fear, I should be giving up my best chance if I
went there."
"Well," answered the stranger, somewhat mollified, "you don't
speak like one of them beastly aristocrats--that I will say--as though
it were too much trouble to open their darned lips."
Mr Derrick himself did not speak like an aristocrat either; his voice,
though rich in song, had in speech a strong northern burr, which
rescued it from any such imputations. "Why, if a man in my country,"
continued he, "should venture to warn another off his land--unless,
of course, it was a mining claim--as Sir Richard Lisgard"----
"Mr Derrick," interrupted the captain firmly, "I am sure that it
is not the custom in any country in the world to abuse a man's
brother to his face. Having said that much, I will add that, if you have
received any rudeness from any one at the Abbey, I am sincerely sorry
for it. It did not emanate from me. Mr Chifney here will give me
a character so far."
"Master Walter is as civil-spoken and well-behaved a young gentleman as
any in the county," exclaimed the trainer warmly; "and I will go bail
has never given you or any man offence. He has just stepped in, like
you, to see 'the crack' on which he has a little money; and since I am
not one of those who say: 'It is no use now a days to attempt to take in
your enemies, and therefore your friends must suffer,' I have been
giving him some advice."
"About Manylaws?" inquired the stranger suspiciously, turning
sharp round upon the captain.
The look of blank astonishment upon that gallant officer's face would
have set at rest the doubts of a Pollaky.
"It is not my habit to disclose my customer's secrets," observed
the trainer tartly; "although I may say that, with Master Walter,
everything is as safe as wax."
"Is it so?" quoth Mr Derrick warmly; "then let him come with us and see
the Black.--Only mind, Mr Walter Lisgard, I will not have that brother
of yours bettered by a fourpenny-piece by anything you may see or hear
to-day."
"My brother never bets upon any race," answered the captain quietly;
"so that promise is easily given."
"Then come along with me and Mr Chifney," said the stranger, holding
out his hairy hand in token of amity. "You've read a deal about
that crack as I've just been looking at; but I dare say, now, you have
never so much as heard of this same Manylaws."
"Not unless you mean the French horse, about which there were a few
lines in Bell some time ago--Menelaus."
"Ay, that's him. But it's called Manylaws" explained Mr Derrick;
"for you wouldn't think of calling the Oaks' mare Antigown, I
suppose, Antigone. Well, the Black ain't fancied much, I reckon; but
he will be, Mr Chifney, eh? He will be?"
"It is my opinion that he will be at very short odds indeed,"
returned the trainer; "and many more people will be desirous of paying
him a call than do him that honour just at present. This is his stable.
He does not look quite such a likely horse as The King, Master Walter,
does he? There's bone for you!"
"An ounce of blood is worth a pound of bone, says the proverb,"
remarked the captain.
"So far as that goes, although he is a Frenchman," answered the
trainer, "he has Godolphin's blood in his veins. But only look at
his ragged hips!"
"Ragged enough, Mr Chifney. And do you mean to say that this animal
will be a public favourite?"
"We hope not," returned the trainer, winking facetiously at his
bearded friend; "but---- Shall we tell him what we do hope, Mr
Derrick?"
"I'll tell him myself," quoth the other impulsively, "for you say
the young gentleman is safe, and I have taken a sort of unaccountable
fancy to him. We hope, and more than that, believe, Captain Lisgard,
that that same ragged-hipped horse will Win the Derby!"
"Two hundred to one against Mr Blanquette's Menelaus," murmured Walter
pathetically, as though it were a line from some poem of the affections.
"That's the present quotation," answered Mr Derrick with a
chuckle, and rattling a quantity of loose silver and gold in his
breeches' pockets. "Perhaps you would like to lay it in ponies with
Mr Chifney and me."
"No, Mr Derrick; but I should like to thank you very much for letting
me into this secret, which, I assure you, shall never pass my lips;"
and he held out his hand to the stranger.
"Our way lies together as far as the inn," returned the other
warmly; "we'll liquor---- But there; I forgot I was no longer in
Cariboo. I dare say a gentleman like you don't liquor so early in the
day."
"At all events, I will walk with you, my good sir," answered
the captain laughing; and so, forgetting to repeat his request to be
permitted to pay his respects to the trainer's wife, he took his
departure with his new acquaintance.
"And who is this Monsieur Blanquette?" inquired Walter carelessly
as they walked down the village street.
"He was a mate of mine at the gold-diggings in British Columbia, and
the only Frenchman as ever I saw there. We did a pretty good stroke
of work together; and when we came home, he invested his money
in horseflesh, and that there Manylaws was one of his cheapest
bargains."
"I think I saw it stated somewhere that Mr Blanquette is only
part-owner of the horse?" observed the captain inquiringly.
"That's so," rejoined the other. "It belongs to him and a
company."
"And you are the company, eh, Mr Derrick?"
"You have hit it," responded the bearded man with the air of a
proprietor. "This here child is the Co. in question."
CHAPTER VII. A BROKEN FRIENDSHIP.
|WEEKS and months have passed by at Mirk Abbey; the snow has thawed, and
the cold winds of March have done their worst, and the spring is
clothing nature's nakedness with garments of green. Yet all this time,
my Lady, who is so fond of outdoor exercise, even in rough weather, and
such a constant visitor of the poor, has never been seen beyond the Park
gates. To be sure, she has had more to keep her within than usual, for
the captain not only has got his leave prolonged at the beginning of the
year, but came home for three weeks very shortly after, and is at Mirk
again at the present time. Miss Rose Aynton, too, a very nice young
lady, and most attentive to her hostess, seems to have become quite a
resident at the Abbey, for, with the exception of a week's absence in
London, she has remained there since Christmas, her departure having
indeed been vaguely fixed more than once, but only to be as indefinitely
postponed. It is now understood that she will certainly stay over the
festivities attendant upon Sir Richard's coming of age in June. The
baronet himself, who, his detractors say, always prefers the country,
where he is somebody, to town, where baronets are plentiful, has
scarcely been away at all. He writes to inquiring friends in London,
most of whom happen to have marriageable daughters, that he is immersed
in business connected with the estate, and cannot leave Mirk at present.
Mr Rinkel, the agent, however, has seen no cause to relax his ordinary
exertions, in consequence of this new-born application of the young
gentleman to his own affairs; and Walter wickedly asserts that his
brother is in reality occupied with no other business whatever, save
that of keeping the man Derrick from trespassing upon the Abbey lands.
He is very glad, he says, that Richard has at last found an object in
life, and hopes that, like the French sportsman's woodcock, it will last
him for a good long time.
It does not help to heal the breach between the brothers that Walter
and this same man have grown very intimate, a fact which Sir Richard
(assuming to himself a metaphor usually applied only to Providence)
stigmatises as "flying in his face."--His mother, however, declines
to take this view of it--declines even to express an opinion about it
one way or another, and avoids the subject as much as she can. Even with
the confidential maid, notwithstanding her decision about Mr Derrick's
ineligibility as a suitor, she forbears to reason with respect to this
matter, although it is understood that the forbidden swain is gaining
ground in the affections of Mistress Forest. There is but one person
to whom my Lady has opened her lips concerning the man she dimly saw
by lantern-light on Christmas Eve, and has never seen since. Her
confidant--if one can be called so to whom so little was confided--is Mr
Arthur Haldane, the only son of the doctor, and one who has been a great
favourite with Lady Lisgard from his youth up, not for his own sake
merely, although he is honest and kind, and very winning with those who
look beyond externals (for he is not goodlooking, or, at least, does
not appear so by contrast with her own handsome sons), but for another
reason: my Lady owed him a reparation of love for a wrong that she had
inadvertently done his father.
Dr Haldane and the late Sir Robert had been at school together, and
their boy-friendship had lasted, as it seldom does, through their
university course. Their mutual esteem had not afterwards suffered by
propinquity, when they came to pass their days within a few hundred
yards of one another; and when my Lady married, she found that the
dearest friend her husband had on earth was Dr Haldane. She was not
the woman to come between her husband's friends and himself; and the
doctor (who had had his doubts about the matter before he came to know
her) was wont to declare the Abbey was even more of a second home to
him than it used to he, now that his old friend had placed so charming
a mistress at the head of it. He was always welcome there, and being
himself a widower, was glad to take advantage of Sir Robert's
hospitality whenever he could; a knife and fork were laid for him at
table all the year round; and when he did not appear at the dinner-hour,
either husband or wife was sure to observe: "I am afraid we shall not
see the doctor with us to-day." It would have seemed as though nothing
short of death could have interrupted such cordiality as this.
But in those days there was such a thing as Politics. The baronet was
a Tory, and his friend a Whig of what was afterwards called "advanced
opinions." They bickered over their wine three nights out of every
seven, though they never failed to drink each other's healths before
they sought the company of the hostess. These political discussions
(unfortunately, as it turned out) were scrupulously confined to
the diningroom, so that my Lady had no idea of the strength of the
respective prejudices of the combatants, and of the severity of the
trial to which their friendship was so often subjected. Brought up
as she had been among persons in humble life, who were engaged in
bread-winning (a very monopolising occupation), and educated in France,
where the question of English reform was never mooted, she knew little
or nothing of the matters which formed the subjects of dispute, although
they were setting half England together by the ears. It seems strange
to read of now, but the idol which Toryism had set up to worship at that
epoch was a heartless and vulgar fop, whom it sycophantically dubbed the
First Gentleman in Europe; while the Whigs pinned their faith upon the
virtue of his wife, a woman as vulgar as himself, and whom her enemies
endeavoured to shew was almost as vicious. Over this good-for-nothing
pair, Lords, Commons, and People were quarrelling together, like a mob
at a dog-fight, and the public press was solely occupied with hounding
them on. To dip into a newspaper of that date is to make an excursion
to Billingsgate, for both parties, equally unable to whitewash their
candidate, confined themselves to vilifying their opponent.
When the report upon the bill of Pains and Penalties against Queen
Caroline was finally approved by a majority of nine only, and those
nine representing the votes of the ministers themselves, the popular
excitement culminated. The Whigs decreed that there should be
illuminations throughout the kingdom, and (what seems hard) that their
adversaries should express the same satisfaction in a similar manner.
For three consecutive nights, the Londoners made plain the innocence of
their queen, so far as pyrotechnics and oil-lamps could do it; and for
one night, the country was expected to do the like. Vast mobs paraded
the streets of the provincial towns, to see that this was done, and even
made excursions to the country-houses of the Disaffected. Among others,
Mirk Abbey was threatened with a visitation of this sort; and I must
confess that the doctor rather chuckled over the notion, that the
stubborn Sir Robert, who had called his sovereign lady so many
opprobrious epithets, would have to dedicate his candles to her, as
though she were his patron saint. The baronet, on his part, protested
that every window in his house should be broken rather than exhibit
so much as a farthing-dip; but he said nothing to his wife about the
matter, lest it should make her nervous.
They happened to be engaged to pass that November week at a friend's
house in the country, and left home accordingly.
The gentleman with whom they stayed himself suffered some inconvenience
from the rioters on the night in question; and when Sir Robert came
back, he was even less inclined to be a convert to his Whig friend's
opinions than before.
"But you did illuminate," said the doctor with a chuckle, as they
sat together after dinner, as usual, upon the day of his return.
"I did nothing of the kind, sir," returned the baronet angrily.
"Well, your servants did it for you, then, and I presume by your
orders. Mr Brougham himself could not have exhibited his patriotism
more significantly. The Abbey was a blaze of light from basement to
garret."
"That is a lie!" cried Sir Robert, making the glasses jump with the
force with which he brought his fist down upon the table.
"A what?" exclaimed the doctor, rising from the table livid with
rage. "Do you, then, call me a liar?"
"Yes," thundered the baronet; "like all your radical crew."
The two men that had so long been nearer and dearer to each other than
brothers never again interchanged one word.
Dr Haldane left the Abbey, solemnly protesting that he would never cross
its threshold again during the lifetime of its owner; and he kept his
determination even in the hour when his old friend lay a-dying.
Now, poor Lady Lisgard was the person to blame for all this. Before Sir
Robert and she had set out on their visit, the housekeeper had told
her that everybody was going to illuminate their houses on the 12th, on
account of what had happened in London with respect to Queen Caroline;
and she was afraid that if some sign of rejoicing was not shewn at the
Abbey, the mob would do some damage. A candle in each of the windows
would save a hundred pounds of mischief belike. "Well, then, put a
candle," said my Lady, not dreaming that by that simple order she was
wounding her husband in his most vital point, his pride, and making
a sacrifice of principles that he held only second to those of the
Christian Religion. She did not even think it necessary to tell him that
she had left this command behind her; but when she heard him praise the
determination of the friend with whom they stayed, not to submit to
the dictation of the rabble, she had not the heart to tell him of the
mistake she had committed, and which it was by that time too late to
remedy. That mistake, and, still more, her unfortunate reticence, had
caused the quarrel, destined never to be healed, betwixt her husband and
his friend. They both forgave her, but she could not forgive herself. It
seemed to her that she could never do enough to shew how sorry she was
for her grievous fault. We have said how she made up so far as was in
her power, in love and duty to Sir Robert, for the loss of his friend;
but to that friend himself, self-exiled from her roof, and out of the
reach, as it were, of reparation, how was she to atone for the wrong
she had inadvertently done him? When the quarrel first took place, the
doctor's wrath was quite unquenchable; he would listen to nothing
except an apology--a debt which Sir Robert (although he certainly
owed it) most resolutely refused to pay. The doctor, who had hitherto
confined his Whiggism to after-dinner eloquence, and coarse but biting
epigrams, which had earned him the reputation of a philosopher with
those of his own party, thereupon became an active political partisan,
and not only voted at election-time, but canvassed with might and main
against the Lisgard interest; nay, he even composed, as we have ventured
to hint, satirical ballads against the paternal rule of that respectable
family.
But although neither sex nor age was spared in those savage days, not
one word did the vengeful doctor breathe about my Lady; nay, it was
on record that when some too uncompromising apostle of Liberty had
reflected upon her humble extraction in the presence of that friend
estranged, he had risen to his full height of five feet eight, and
levelled the slanderer to the earth. Perhaps my Lady did not esteem him
the less upon that account; but certain it was that the first visit she
paid after Sir Robert's death was to the doctor's house, taking
with her, it was said, from her husband's dying lips, a message of
affectionate reconciliation. The baronet had never brought himself to
alter the words in his will by which he had appointed his tried and
loving friend, Bartholomew Haldane, trustee for his children; and of
course the doctor accepted his trust. He never could be induced to
visit the Abbey, although his oath no longer forbade it; but the Lisgard
children were his constant guests, and his only son, Arthur Haldane, was
as another brother to them, and almost as another son to my Lady. His
nature was grave and serious, like Sir Richard's, but very tender
withal, and she felt that she could confide in him what she could not
have confided to the rigid young baronet, although he was her own flesh
and blood; nevertheless, or perhaps for that very reason, when she took
Arthur's arm that April morning, upon pretence of shewing him
some alterations that were proposed to be made at a place in the
Abbey-grounds called the "Watersmeet," she thought it necessary to
preface what she was going to say to him with an explanation.
"My dear Arthur," said she, when they had got out of view of the
house, "you will think it cruel that I have brought you away from the
society of that charming young lady, Miss Aynton, to chat with an old
woman like me, who have boys of my own to take counsel with; but the
fact is, I have inveigled you hither to get an opinion from you which I
could scarcely ask of your learned brother."
This was conferring a brevet rank upon Sir Richard, who had not yet been
called to the Bar, although he was reading for it; while Arthur had been
in practice for some years.
"My dear Lady Lisgard," returned the other smiling, "I must, for
my professional credit's sake, enter my protest against what you say
about Miss Aynton, as irrelevant, and travelling out of the record,
but besides that, it is a delusion which I should be sorry to see you
entertain. Miss Aynton is nothing whatever to me; although, indeed, if
she were, I would rather chat with you than with any young lady (save
one) in Christendom."
The young barrister's tone was so unnecessarily earnest and
impressive, that one so acute as Lady Lisgard could scarcely have failed
to see that he courted inquiry concerning such excess of zeal. She
either saw it not, however, or refused to see it; and he was far too
delicate by nature to press it upon her attention. "And now, ma
mre," continued he, taking her hand in his affectionately, "in
what way can I be of use to you?"
"By your good sense, and by your good feeling, Arthur. I need the
aid of your talents and your virtues, too, dear boy; I want your best
advice, and then your promise that you will never disclose that I have
asked it."
"You shall have both those, ma mre. As the pashas say to the sultan
when there is nothing to fear: 'I bring you my head;' as for my
heart--that has been devoted to you these many years."
CHAPTER VIII. AT THE WATERSMEET.
|LADY LISGARD and her young friend had by this time arrived at the
Waters-meet, a lovely spot, where the river branched into two streams,
the one still pursuing its course through the Lisgard property, and
the other escaping under a sort of swing palisade--which prevented the
passage of boats--into public life. The way had lain for some time along
a broad beech-walk, paved with an exquisite checker-work of light and
shade; but they now came upon an open spot on which a rustic bench
was placed for those who would admire at leisure what was called the
home-view. The prospect from this seat was remarkable, since it took
in all that was best worth seeing at Mirk, without laying under
contribution anything, with the exception of the church, that was not
the property of the family. Two sides of the Abbey, an irregular but
very picturesque structure, could from here be seen, at a distance not
so great as to lose the bolder features of the architecture, or to mass
the ivy which Time had hung about the southern front; the sloping
lawn, with its marble fountain, and alcove of trellis-work, which the
spring-time had but sparely clothed with leaf; the boat-house, with its
carved and gilded roof--all these, backed by a living wall of stately
woods, made up a charming picture. The Park lay across the stream,
which, although both broad and deep, was only used by pleasure-boats;
and above the one-arched bridge which linked it with the hither bank
beyond the lawn, stood up the gray church tower. Gazing upon this view,
not as one who had seen it a thousand times before, and might behold it
as often again, but with eyes that had a strange yearning and regret in
them, Lady Lisgard thus addressed her companion.
"I want to speak to you about my Walter, Arthur. A mother, alas!
cannot know her son as his friend knows him; and you, I believe, are
Walter's truest friend"----
"One moment, Lady Lisgard," interrupted the young man gravely;
"everybody is Walter's friend, but some are his flatterers. I must
tell you at once that he is displeased with me at present because I am
not one of those."
"Yes; you have warned him of some danger, and he is piqued because he
thinks that is treating him as a child."
"Since you know that, ma mre, you know all that is necessary to
be said. Go on."
"What is the bond, Arthur, that links my Walter to this person Derrick?
I pray you, do not hesitate to tell me. There is more depends upon your
answer than you can possibly guess."
"Really, Lady Lisgard," returned the young man hesitatingly, "you
ask a difficult thing, and, in truth, a delicate. There are some things,
as you say, which a son does not tell his mother, and far less wishes to
have told to her by another. Women and men take such different views of
the same matter. If men are vicious--which I do not deny--in their love
of horse-racing, for instance, women reprobate it in an exaggerated
way."
"Horse-racing!" murmured Lady Lisgard, clasping her hands. "Does
my Walter bet? Is he a gambler?"
"I did not say that," answered the young man with irritation. "If
you insist upon making me a tale-bearer, Lady Lisgard, do not at least
heighten the colour of my scandals."
"I beg your pardon, Arthur; I was wrong. Perhaps this eagerness
to suspect the worst is the cause of that distrust which the young
entertain of the old. And yet he might have told me all, and been sure
of forgiveness."
"Doubtless, ma mre; but then we don't tell our mothers all. Now,
pray, be reasonable, and assure yourself that Walter is no worse than
other young men, because he makes up a book upon the Derby."
"You do not do so, Arthur. Why should Walter?"
"I do not, ma mre, because my taste does not lie in that
direction. My vices--and I have plenty--are of another sort. I unsettle
my mind with heterodox publications. I entertain opinions which are
subversive of the principles of good government as believed in by your
Ladyship's family. You know in what sort of faith I have been brought
up. Moreover, I live in town among a slow, hard-working set, who have
neither time nor inclination for going to race-courses; and, indeed, I
am now getting a little practice at the bar myself. If I were a handsome
young swell in a regiment of Light Dragoons, then, instead of publishing
that amusing work upon the Law of Entail, which, with a totally
inexcusable pang, I saw lying upon your library-table to-day uncut,
I should without doubt be making a betting-book. Having no call towards
that sort of employment, however, I am very severe upon it. I term it
waste of time, loss of money, &c.; and in the case of your son, I have
even been so foolish as to remonstrate with him on that very account--an
interference which, I fear, has cost me his friendship."
"Has he lost money through this man Derrick, think you?"
"Not yet, or they would not be upon such good terms. A turf friendship
ceases at the first bad bet. The fact is, it was about his imtimacy
with this drunken fellow that I ventured to speak; it increases the
misunderstanding already unhappily existing between your sons; for you
know what a dislike Sir Richard has shewn for this person, while for
Walter himself I believe him to be a most dangerous acquaintance."
"Dangerous?" inquired my Lady hurriedly--"how mean you
dangerous?"
"He is bad company for any young man, and he has acquaintances who are
worse. Walter is 'hail-fellow-well-met' with everybody, and may find
himself one day so deeply involved with these folks, that extrication
may not be easy. He has plenty of wits, and well knows how to take care
of himself in a general way; but all his great advantages are useless to
him among this particular class. His genial wit, his graceful ways, his
tenderness of heart--nay, even his high spirits, all go for nothing with
such vulgar good-for-naughts, whom, in my opinion, he will be lucky not
to find downright cheats and scoundrels."
"Is this man Derrick, then," inquired my Lady, gazing fixedly upon
the dark swirling stream, "irredeemably base and vicious?"
"No, not so," answered the young man frankly; "he has the lees of
good still left in him, without which, indeed, he would be less harmful.
Walter was taken from the first with his openness and candour--which are
so great that he seems quite lost to the sense of shame--and with his
lavish generosity, which is probably the result of rapid fortunemaking.
He made five thousand pounds or so, it seems, in a few weeks at
gold-digging, and I should think he was in a fair way to spend it in
almost as short a period."
"Perhaps he may have been spoilt by that mode of life," observed
Lady Lisgard pitifully.
"I speak as I find, ma mre," said the young man, shrugging his
shoulders. "It is nothing to us if this man may have been a good boy at
one time. You may charitably suppose, if you like, that he has been
crossed in love, or unfortunately married------ Ah! that reminds you, I
see, of his tendresse for Mistress Forest. Since it moves you so
deeply, you must look that matter in the face, Lady Lisgard, and very
soon, if you wish to keep Mary. If something about this fellow pleases
Walter, you need not wonder that it has fascinated your waiting-maid."
"Is it this fancy of his, then, think you, which alone keeps him here
at Mirk?" asked my Lady, who had started for a moment as though stung,
but was now once more looking thoughtfully at the river.
"No. Being totally without anchorage in the world, the cable-strand
of a partnership in a race-horse at present at Chifney's stables here
holds him to the place where he can be near his property. His pecuniary
affairs are, as I understand, bound up in that fourfooted creature, and
beyond them he has nothing to look to. You who have all things settled
about you, Lady Lisgard, with home, children, and friends, and from whom
so many interests radiate, are doubtless unable to picture to yourself
such a state of things. But if this man should marry Mistress Forest,
and still keep his share in Menelaus, I should not be surprised if he
were to take up his residence at Mirk altogether."
"God in his mercy forbid!" ejaculated my Lady, clasping her hands.
"My dear Lady Lisgard!" cried the young man, in alarm at her
emotion, "I am afraid I must have said something very foolish, to have
frightened you about this fellow thus. After all, there is no harm done,
and I may have been very wrong--as my mind misgives me, I have been very
officious--in anticipating any harm."
"No, no," cried my Lady, rocking herself to and fro; "your good
sense has only told you Truth. Do not--do not forsake me, Arthur. I look
to you not only for warning, but for succour. Are you sure that you have
told me all? Is there no other reason besides those you have mentioned
why this man, having lain in wait, and entrapped my Walter, should sit
down before this house, and, as it were, besiege it thus?"
"Well, Lady Lisgard," returned the young man gravely, "there is, I
fear, another reason; but it is one I am very loath to speak of-----
Are you cold, ma mre? I fear it is too early for this sitting by the
river."
"No, Arthur, I am not cold. Why should you hesitate to tell me
anything about this--this stranger?"
"Because, Lady Lisgard, I respect you as though you were indeed my
mother--as you have shewn towards me always a mother's love; and this
matter in some sort concerns yourself."
"Myself?" whispered my Lady hoarsely. "No, not myself, good
Arthur. What can there be in common between this man--whom I have never
seen--and me?"
"Ay, there it is," replied the young man quietly. "It would have
been far better had you not shut yourself up, as you have done these
three months, expressly to avoid this fellow--by that means making him
think himself of consequence."
"Who says I have done that?" asked my Lady vehemently, "Who dares
to say it? Why should I fear him? Why should I think about him well or
ill? What is he to me, or I to him?"
"Ay, what indeed, ma mre! All this arises from giving ourselves
such airs, and carrying matters with so high a hand: you have nothing
but Sir Richard's pride to thank for it, to which I must say, in this
instance, you have injudiciously, and, most unlike yourself, succumbed.
It was a harsh measure, surely, to forbid this man your house, when
coming, as you knew he would, upon a lawful errand of courtship; but to
serve the landlord of an inn with notice of ejectment if a certain guest
should not remove himself--which your eldest son has caused to be done
with Steve--is a most monstrous exercise of authority. No wonder this
Derrick was greatly irritated; any man so treated would be: but, in the
present case, Sir Richard has made the unhappiest mistake. He is dealing
with one who is to the full as obstinate as himself; and (what makes
the odds overwhelmingly against him) a man entirely reckless and
unprincipled. Your son does not understand how any one can be proud who
is not a gentleman. Now, this fellow is possessed of a very devil of
pride. He is come from an outlying colony, where there is conventional
respect for nothing; and where every man does pretty much what is right
in his own eyes. He has been lucky there; raised by a freak of fortune,
and not by plodding industry (although he has doubtless worked hard
too), to comparative wealth, he is by no means inclined to consider
people his superiors. A beggar on horseback if you will, he is still
mounted, and may ride in Rotten Row itself if it pleases him. He
resents, of course, being thus meddled with; he is one of that class
who would deem it a great liberty in the law should it punish his
actual transgressions--who would think it hard to be smitten for his
faults--but to be interfered with in a harmless avocation, such as
lovemaking, or to be dictated to as to where he is to reside, stirs his
bile, I can imagine, pretty considerably. It is my belief that he
would have got tired of Mirk and Mary too before this, and wandered off
somewhere else, scattering his bank-notes on the way, poor devil, like
the hare in a school-boy's paper chase, but for this unjustifiable
attempt on the part of Sir Richard to curtail his liberties. I am sure,
also, that Walter was at first inclined to patronise this man, for the
very reason that his brother had exhibited towards him such uncalled-for
animosity."
"This may be all very true," said my Lady sighing, but at the same
time not without a certain air of relief; "but I cannot understand how
it affects me, Arthur."
"Well, you see, my dear Lady Lisgard, although Sir Richard issues
these foolish edicts, it is you who are responsible for them; and I have
no doubt this Derrick has been told as much. At least, I hear, that
over his cups he has declared he will never leave Mirk till he has had
a sight of this Queen of all the Roosias (as he terms you), who holds
herself so---- Pardon me, ma mre; I was wrong to repeat this
fellow's impertinence. Heaven help us! Why, my Lady has fainted!"
Arthur Haldane spoke the truth. For the moment, Lady Lisgard's mind
was freed from all its anxieties, of whatever nature they might be.
The young man sprang down the bank, and dipping his handkerchief in
the stream, applied its wet folds to her forehead. Gradual and slow
the lifeblood flowed again, and with it thought, although confused and
tangled.
"Save me, save my Walter!" murmured she. "Tell him I will die
first. He shall never look upon my face."
"He never shall, ma mre said the young man soothingly, while he
chafed my Lady's stiffened fingers.
"Keep him away!" cried she, endeavouring to rise; "he is tearing
off my wedding-ring. Help! help!"
"No, no, it is not he; it is I, Arthur Haldane--a well-meaning fool,
but who has worked a deal of mischief. I have told you all I know, and
I wish my tongue had been cut out first. It makes my heart bleed to see
you thus distressed."
"Then give me comfort, Arthur," groaned my Lady; "you have warned
me well, but what is the use of warning without advice. How shall I make
him cease to persecute us? Gold will not buy him. I have heard of such
a man, who, being bribed, cried but the more 'Give, give;' as
the whirlpool swallows ship after ship, and yet gapes for more---for
navies."
"Bribe him? No, Heaven forbid! That, indeed, would be the very way to
keep him what he is--to make that chronic which is now, let us hope, but
a passing ailment. But I would take care, if I were you, that nothing
further he done to irritate him. He may-revenge himself--I only say he
may--by doing Walter some ill turn. And, above all, you must persuade
Mistress Forest to give him his cong. If once you get her to say
'No,' of her own freewill, he will soon tire of haunting the Abbey;
while, if his race-horse does not do the great things expected of
him--and what race-horse ever did?--he will soon tire of Mirk itself."
My Lady shook her head.
"Come, ma mre, there is no need for despondency about this
fellow's going--nor, indeed, for much apprehension if he stays--and,
moreover, I really think the matter lies in your own hands; at all
events, you have more influence over your waiting-maid than any one
else, and my advice is that you speak to her at once."
"Yes, I will speak to her," said Lady Lisgard mechanically. "Thank
you, good Arthur, much." She rose from her seat, and, heaving a deep
sigh as she turned from the fair home-scene, was about to saunter to the
beech-walk, when the young man laid his hand upon her arm. It was the
lightest touch, but, like that of an enchanter's wand, it seemed
to remove all trace of selfish trouble, and in its place to evoke the
tenderest sympathy for another.
"You wish to speak to me upon your own account, dear boy; and, alas! I
know the subject you would choose."
"Alas, ma mre! why alas? I want to talk to you about your
Letty."
"Not now, not now," cried Lady Lisgard. "Spare me, dear Arthur,
for this time; I feel so unhinged and woe-stricken, I can give you
neither 'Yea nor 'Nay.'"
"I hoped that you would not have thought of 'Nay,' dear Lady
Lisgard," said the young man pathetically. "I did not look for the
same cruel arguments of difference of station and the like from you as
from--others. I shall have a home to offer your daughter such as will
be wanting in no comfort, although it may not be one so fair as yonder
Abbey. My professional prospects are, I am glad to say"----
"It is not that, dear boy," broke in Lady Lisgard hastily. "You
should know me better than to suppose so, Arthur; yet I cannot, nay,
I dare not tell you what it is. It may be you will hear the truth
some day, though never from these lips; it may be--I pray Heaven for
that--that you will never need to hear it. But for the present, press
me for no reply; for when you ask to be my daughter's husband, Arthur
Haldane, you know not what you ask."
"That is what Sir Richard says," replied the young man bitterly.
"The Lisgards are such an ancient race, their blood so pure, their
scutcheon"------
"Spare me, spare me, Arthur!" cried my Lady earnestly. "Give me
only time, and I will do my best. If I have said anything to wound you,
ah! forgive it for the sake of those old times, which you may think of
some day, boy, not without tears, when I shall be to you but a memory.
Think then--whatever's said--'Well, she was always kind to me; and
when I wooed her daughter (you will own) she was kind too, although I
did not think so then.'" My Lady's face was hidden in her hands,
but through the fair white fingers, as though the diamonds in her rings
had started from their sockets, oozed the large tears.
"Dear Lady Lisgard, good, kind friend, ma mre," exclaimed the
young man, deeply moved, "what sorrow is it which overwhelms you thus?
I pray you, let me share it. I am young and strong, and I love you and
yours, and there is help in me. Come, let me try."
"No, Arthur, no," answered my Lady gravely, as she once more arose,
and re-entered the beech-walk. "I must bear my own burden--that
is only right and fitting. Heaven knows I am willing to suffer to
the uttermost, if I be only permitted to suffer alone. It is when the
innocent suffer for us that the burden galls the most. No; you can do
nothing for me but keep silence about all that we have spoken of to-day.
Not to do so, would be to do me a grievous hurt. You have passed your
word, Arthur Haldane--remember that."
"Yes, ma mre," replied the young man sighing. "The Haldanes
always keep their promises, you know."
CHAPTER IX. IN THE LIBRARY.
|OF all the pleasant rooms--and they were many--that were to be found at
Mirk Abbey, the Library was by far the most charming. An architect might
have said that the rest of the house had been somewhat sacrificed to
it; a bookworm might have wished it gloomier and more retired; but for
a lover of literature who was also a judge of beauty, it was well-nigh
perfect. It was upon the first floor, and occupied the space of at least
three reception-rooms.
Long as it was, its excessive breadth might have been objected to, but
that the effect of this was diminished to exactly the right proportions
by huge double bookcases, which jutted out at right angles from the
walls; thus the place was broken up, as it were, into a number of little
studies, closed in upon three sides, but open, of course, towards what
in a church would be called the aisle. This aisle, still a broad space,
was set alternately with flower-vases and statues of white marble,
though none of these were so tall as to hide from one standing at
the door the view of the huge painted window at the southern end. In
summer-time, this window was swung back, and all the garden scents and
drowsy sounds--the level sweep of the scythe upon the lawn, and the
murmur of the bees in the limes--were suffered to enter in. In winter,
being closed, what light there was came glowing through the pictured
panes, or through small windows far above the level of the eye, so that,
in that well-warmed room, you could not tell that it was winter.
And yet this stately apartment was seldom used in either season. Letty
would sometimes take a Godly book from that part of the place marked in
dull gold Devotional, but always carried it away to read in her own
chamber; and Sir Richard now and then would refresh himself in the
topographical department by taking down the History of Wheatshire,
where all the Family Seats were duly pictured, and the linked sweetness
of the genealogy of the owners long drawn out; but the Lisgards were
not a reading race. Moreover, when they did read, it was chiefly out of
modern books temporarily supplied by Mr Mudie, or works most glorious to
behold as to their bindings, and without which no lady's drawing-room
can be said to be complete, but which happily are rarely seen in
libraries. My Lady herself had a goodly store of books in her own boudoir, including
most of the French and English classics, all presented to her at divers
times by her late husband, and all read, if not for her own pleasure,
then for his; she therefore visited the Library more rarely than any one
except Walter, who would as soon have thought of visiting the laundry.
The last time she had gone thither was just after Miss Aynton's first
arrival, when she had taken that young lady to see some curious missals
there deposited, containing certain initial letters which Rose was
desirous of copying.
She enters it now alone upon her return from that interview with Arthur
Haldane at the Watersmeet--on a very different errand. She is no longer
the kind of somewhat stately hostess, doing her young guest a pleasure,
and at the same time perhaps taking a pardonable pride in shewing her
the gem of the Abbey--its Library--for the first time. All pride, all
stateliness, seem to have departed from that anxious face; her figure,
however, is erect as of old, and her step as firm, as she closes the
door of the vast room behind her, and walks towards its southern end.
She looks neither to left nor right, for she is in search of none of
those volumes which line the Library on either side. The place for which
she is bound is in a far corner next the window, but very indirectly
lighted by it; a small "study," where, if such a thing as dust were
permitted to accumulate at the Abbey at all, it would certainly lie;
and where it did lie; a spot unvisited for years, ever since it had
been determined that Sir Richard's profession should be the Law, when
certain books were taken from it, and carried up to town to stock his
chambers; for over this little literary den was written Legal. Truly, as
the phrase goes, "it was not a place for a lady," that dusky little
chamber, lined with its bulky, calf-bound volumes, mostly in series,
and often as not connected with one another by that emblem of their
contents, a spider's web. What could my Lady have come hither to
cull from such unpromising books? Is it possible that, unmindful of the
proverb, that he who is his own lawyer has got a fool for his client,
she can be in search of legal advice gratis? It is plain that she is
in doubt, alas, even where to find the information of which she is in
search. Her soft white hand wanders from tome to tome, and drags down
one after another from its dusty shelf, until she has peopled the
sunbeams anew with motes; but her large gray eyes find nothing to arrest
them as they wander over the arid pages, although they grow weary with
their task.
At last, however, they seem to have been more fortunate. For the first
time, my Lady takes her seat beside the slanting desk, and with her head
supported by her hands, like one who is in need of all her wits, she
reads on patiently enough. She cons the matter over twice or thrice,
then sighs, and putting a thin slip of paper in the book to mark the
place, returns it to its shelf, and pursues her search as before. Out of
several score of volumes, four only seem to have served her purpose, and
even from them it is evident that she has gleaned no comfort, but rather
confirmation of some fear. Her face is more hopeless than it was a while
ago; her sigh--and she sighs deep and often--has despair in it, as
well as sorrow. From her wearied eyes, as she gazes upon the opened
casement--through which comes a dreamy music in the flutter of the young
leaves on a neighbouring elm, and the silver leap of the fountain on the
lawn--tear follows tear, although she knows it not, and glides down the
new-made furrows in her cheeks.
The luncheon gong was beaten an hour ago, and then was taken out into
the garden for her especial behoof, and beaten again; but my Lady heard
it not. She has neither eyes nor ears for the present at all. She is
thinking of some Future more dark and terrible than death itself, a day
of dishonour and disgrace, that is creeping slowly but surely upon her
and hers. The young leaves babble of it already, and the fountain with
its talking water, and every whispering breath of April wind; and now
she listens to them; and now she tries in vain to think and think;
and now she listens to them perforce again. They are comforters these
mysterious voices, and do but pretend to prattle of her woes, in order
that they may woo her to oblivion; for presently the tired arms can no
more bear the burden of that piteous face, but sink down on the desk,
and on those soft and rounded cushions droops the careworn head; and the
eyelids that have scarce shut throughout the livelong night, nor through
many a night before, are closed in slumber. The bee-music, the falling
water, and the lullaby of the April leaves, through Nature's kindly
hands, have given my Lady a nepenthe draught; and, thanks to it, she has
forgotten her woes; nay, more, it has substituted for them joys borrowed
from the unreturning Past, which, while we tarry in Dreamland, are as
real as any.
My Lady is once more a fisherman's daughter, upon the banks of Blea.
The river that flows beside her father's door is almost as salt as
the sea itself, and twice a day the sea itself comes up and fills the
creeks, and sets afloat the boats and colliers that lie sideways on the
oozy beach. When it retires, she longs to be taken with it, for ere
that tide can reach the open sea, it must needs pass by the port of
Bleamouth, where her lover Ralph dwells. Young as she is, she has been
wooed by others, and they better matches than this roving sailor, who,
although he has saved a little money, does not know, says her father,
how to keep it; and when that is gone, how will he keep himself save by
going to sea again; much more, then, how will he keep wife Lucy and a
household? But these wise sayings are naught in Lucy's ears, in which
love whispers always its smooth prophecies, and Ralph's rich laugh
dispels the old man's forebodings, or plays upon them as though they
were the very strings of mirth.
As handsome and stout-hearted a lad he is as ever was fitted to make his
own way through the world; able enough to thrust to left and right all
jostling compeers, and by no means one to lack or to let those dear
to him lack, while bread is to be got by sweat of brow. A smile comes
o'er my Lady's face, and makes it young again, the while she dreams;
for now she sees his signals in the coming boat, and now himself, and
now he leaps ashore, and clasps her with his stalwart arm, and now her
fingers play with the dark locks that curl above his tanned and manly
brow. 'Tis more than half a lifetime back--but she knows not that--and
the colour comes again to the wan cheek as though it were a maiden's,
and once more love awakens in her widowed heart. He speaks; but ere his
tongue can shape the words, a sense of doubt begins to perplex and pain
her. She is a girl, and yet a woman in the vale of years; a fisher's
daughter though a lady bred, with all the circumstances of rank and
wealth about her; the voice is her lover's voice, and yet sounds
strangely like another's; she is on the borderland 'twixt waking
and sleeping, where, as in a dissolving view, the coming and the passing
pictures interlace and exchange features, and the Dream and the Reality
struggle together for life. Some one is speaking, however, that
is certain, and the voice, as no woman can doubt, is tremulous and
love-laden.
"And yet, Rose--for I may call you Rose, may I not?--beautiful as
these pictures are, I do not think they are more exquisite than those
which you have painted yourself."
"You flatter me, Sir Richard," returned a second voice, with which
my Lady was no better acquainted than with the first; for although she
could not but be aware of who the speakers were, since they addressed
one another by their names, she did not recognise her own son's
speech, so changed it was from its ordinary polite but icy tones; while
Rose Aynton's, upon the other hand, generally so quiet and submissive,
were tinged with a mocking bitterness. If Sir Richard Lisgard was really
about to lay his fortune at the feet of this penniless girl, it seemed
strange indeed that she should reply to him in so unnatural a key.
That the delirious joy that might well be at her heart should not be
altogether repressible, was to be expected, and that her tongue should
falter in endeavouring to conceal her triumph; but there was that in
the young girl's accents different from anything that could be thus
explained. Instead of trembling and hesitation in her speech, there was
sheer scorn. Perhaps my Lady should have come forth at once from where
she sat an involuntary eavesdropper; but it must be allowed that the
temptation to remain was very great. Moreover, there were reasons why
she could not explain her own presence in that particular portion of the
Library; and again, should she disclose herself, the young people would
feel no less uncomfortable than though they should even discover at last
that their interview had not been so solitary as they imagined, for how
did she know what had occurred while she was sleeping, and how should
she persuade Miss Rose, even if her word was sufficient for Richard,
that she had been sleeping during that critical period? True, if it
was certain that the offer about to be made would be accepted, as
indeed there was every likelihood that it would be, it was highly
expedient--for various reasons known to my Lady--that she should step
forward, and prevent matters from going further; but so strange did the
girl's voice strike upon her experienced ear, that Lady Lisgard waited
in hopes of she scarce knew what--some almost miracle that might make
her personal interposition unnecessary. At the same time her curiosity
became so excessive during the protracted pause that followed Rose's
"You flatter me," that she ventured to peer round the corner of the
recess wherein she sat, which was now far more in shade than when she
had entered it at noon.
They were standing not very far from her--those two unconscious young
people--in front of a huge portfolio, which leant against a statue of
Cupid and Psyche. The old, old tale of love which the sculpture typified
was evidently being anew repeated by one at least of the living pair.
Sir Richard, who had been turning over the pictures, kept his hand
mechanically on one of them, but his eyes were fixed with a winning
softness; which even his mother had never seen in them before, upon his
fair companion. Through one of the small western windows, the last gleam
of the dying sun had found its way, and rested upon his crisp brown
curls; his manly face glowed in a golden haze, while in his eyes there
beamed a light that no sun can give, and mellower than the rays of moon
or star.
"I do not flatter you, sweet Rose," he said; "I love you."
She too had one hand upon the picture, and but for it, it seemed for
a moment as though she would have fallen, so deadly pale she grew the
while he spoke. Her eyelids quivered, and then slowly sank like two
white rose-leaves on her cheek; while her unoccupied hand fell from her
pale lips, and hung down by her side quite motionless.
"She cannot give him nay," thought Lady Lisgard; "the girl is
overcome with her great joy."
"Why do you not speak, dear Rose?" continued Sir Richard; "or may
I take your silence for consent, and thus set loving seal"-----
He moved towards her, and round her dainty waist had placed his arm,
when she sprang from him like a frightened fawn, who, although so
seeming tame that it will hover nigh, and even follow one, darts off in
terror when we strive to caress it.
"No, Sir Richard, no," cried she; "I cannot marry you--I dare not;
and I will not. You are much too proud and arrogant for me."
"But not to you, Rose," pleaded the young man earnestly. "You
shall be my mistress, I your servant always. If I have ever been proud
to you, I pray you to forgive it. I do beseech your pardon. It seemed
at first that I was right to be so. You do not understand how one like
me----"
"So well born and so rich," interrupted the young girl quietly,
looking up into his face with steady gaze. "Yes, I understand that
well, Sir Richard; and I, on the other hand, a dependent girl, so
inferior to the sort of bride that you had a right to look for; it was
well to keep me at a respectful distance."
"No, not so, Rose," cried the other hastily; "I swear that you
are inferior to no woman whom I have ever seen. But I did not wish-----I
thought, at first, that it would not be for your happiness"----
"And your first thought was right, Sir Richard," broke in the other
bitterly. "When you said to yourself, I will not encourage this young
girl to think it possible that she should ever be the mistress of Mirk
Abbey, you were wise. You did right to hold yourself aloof, to behave
with studied stiffness and formality, to let me know though I might
worship your exalted station, and admire your handsome face"----
"Rose! Rose!"
"Ay, it is Rose now, but it was Miss Aynton then," continued she,
beating her foot upon the floor. "You determined, I say, within
yourself that I should never so forget our relative positions as to
misconstrue any attentions you might please to pay me; you held yourself
so high, and stooped so condescendingly when you did stoop, that, upon
my part at least, you resolved to nip the young beginnings of love, if
such there should be, in their very bud. And, Sir Richard Lisgard, you
succeeded."
She rose to her full height, and pointed at him with her white hand
contemptuously; her swan-like bosom moved, with rapid ebb and flow,
in angry scorn; her curling lips gave wormwood to her words. And yet,
although he felt her biting speech, the young man thought he had never
seen her half so beautiful, half so worthy to be his wife.
"It is you who are proud now, Rose," returned he, speaking with
effort. "I did not think that I could ever have heard such words from
a woman's lips, and yet have sought to woo her. It is your turn
to play the tyrant; but though, by Heaven, you look every inch a
queen"----
"I thank you, sir," interrupted the girl coldly; "but you need say
no more. There is no necessity to offer me that one more chance which
your generosity suggests to you. However incomprehensible and audacious,
coming from these humble lips, may such an answer sound, Sir Richard
Lisgard is refused."
"Rose, dear Rose," cried the young man passionately; "if this be
punishment, do not push it, I pray you, further than I can bear. There
is something in your face in such ill accordance with your speech,
that I cannot yet despair. Is it not possible, sweet girl, that at some
future time--not now, but when you have seen how humble and devoted I
can be, that you may teach your heart to love me?"
"No." A full and rounded word, without a flaw of doubt to mar its
clearness; a sentence irreversible; a judgment against which he felt
there could be no appeal.
"But look you, Rose," continued the baronet huskily; "it is said
that the true love grows after marriage. Suppose I am content to wed you
on that chance, as in very truth I am. Look you, the scene is fair you
behold through yonder window, and all that you see is mine. The Abbey,
too, is mine, or will be so at my mother's death." [A shadow of pain
flits across my Lady's face, to hear her son speak thus so lightly of
that loss, to please a girl whom he has not known six months, and who
does not even love him.] "I have broad acres, girl, fields, farms--a
goodly rent-roll. My wife--the Lady Lisgard--will have more than enough
of wealth to maintain her high position. Rose! have you no ambition?"
Miss Aynton here again grew strangely agitated; once more her cheeks
grew pale, and her limbs trembled beneath her.
"Wretched girl! can she indeed be going to sell herself?" thought my
Lady.
"There is nothing," pursued the wooer, perceiving his advantage,
"which will be out of your reach. You will mix with those same
persons to whose society you have been already accustomed, but in a very
different relation towards them; you will be their equal in station,
and they will be compelled to acknowledge that superiority in all other
respects which they have refused to see in you while a mere dependent on
your aunt's caprice. You will be enabled, I do not say to repay scorn
for scorn--for your sweet nature is incapable of such revenge--but
to extend to those who have wounded you forgiveness; to return each
kindness fiftyfold."
"Sir Richard Lisgard," replied the young girl, speaking slowly, but
with great distinctness, "my answer has been given you already. It
is true that your last arguments moved me, but not for the reason you
imagine. I can marry you neither for love nor for money. You pique
yourself, I think, on being a gentleman; being so, you will cease to
press me further. I am conscious of the honour you have done me in this
matter, and I thank you; but I decline your offer."
The young man bowed, but without speaking. His features, which had
softened to an extraordinary degree throughout their interview, began to
assume a look even haughtier than before; his pride was all the greater
since he had forced himself to stoop in vain.
"I have only one thing, then, to request, Miss Aynton," said he
after a long silence. "I trust that you will not permit what has just
occurred to curtail your stay at Mirk. It is understood that you are to
remain here until after the celebration of--of my majority." He could
scarcely get the word out, poor fellow: he had looked forward so to her
loving sympathy upon that proud occasion, which now seemed emptied of
all its happy auguries.
"Do not fear, Sir Richard," returned the girl with pity; "no one
shall know that the heir of Mirk has met with this disappointment. I
will remain here, since you wish it. Your behaviour towards me needs no
alteration to conceal the fact that you have ever been my lover."
He had once more so reinstated himself in his proof-armour of pride,
that the young baronet was not even aware that this last shaft had any
barb.
"I thank you, Miss Aynton," said he frigidly; "if at any time
it should be within my power to do you or yours a service, please to
command me to the uttermost."
He bowed, and strode away; she heard him close the door, neither softly
nor in anger, and then his measured step upon the carpetless oaken stair
without.
"I have not broken his heart, that's certain," muttered Rose
Aynton, with a crooked smile; "the lover was lost in the patron soon
indeed."
CHAPTER X. MISS ROSE AYNTON "COPIES OUT."
|FOR some minutes there was a total silence in the vast apartment, very
oppressive to at least one of the two persons present, "How long did
this proud girl intend to remain and keep her a prisoner?" thought my
Lady. She was rejoiced that Miss Aynton had refused her son, but at the
same time angry with her for having done so. Rose must surely have had
some motive for it far deeper than the mere revenging herself upon him
for fancied slights. And yet Letty, who was in the girl's confidence,
seemed certain that she had no accepted lover--no previous engagement,
such as alone seemed a sufficient reason for rejecting so advantageous
a proposal. Perhaps she was even now repenting with tears the
determination which had earned for her so dearly-bought a triumph. My
Lady ventured to look forth once more. Yes, the poor girl was doubtless
crying bitterly. Her face was hidden in her hands, but there was a
convulsive movement of the round white shoulders that told its tale
of inward grief. "Poor thing, poor thing!" My Lady's kind heart
yearned towards her now that she was sorry for her treatment of her son.
Perhaps--not knowing Sir Richard as his mother knew him--she might
even now make some hopeless endeavour to win him back to her. If she
succeeded, that would be the worst thing that could possibly happen; and
if she failed--as was almost certain--then she would have to suffer all
this pain over again. Was it not my Lady's duty, then, to do her best
to spare this unhappy motherless girl such bitter disappointment and
humiliation, and to comfort her all she could under her present trouble?
At all events, after some such manner Lady Lisgard reasoned. She did not
stop to think of herself at all--of the imputation of eaves-dropping
to which she must necessarily expose herself--but stepped forth at once
from the recess, and walked quietly to where Rose was standing. Her
footsteps made no noise upon the thick matting that was laid down the
centre of the polished floor. As she approached the unconscious girl,
she was compelled to acknowledge to herself, for the first time, how
strikingly attractive a young woman Miss Aynton was. She had certainly
not the beauty of my Lady's own daughter Letty, nor was she so tall,
or perhaps so graceful; but her figure, although it was one likely to
get coarse in time, was really perfect; her head, exquisitely set
on well-shaped shoulders, was small, but bore such a profusion of
black-brown hair as would have furnished half-a-dozen ordinary young
ladies with chignons; her hands and arms were plump and white. Her
eyes--Lady Lisgard thought that she had never seen such wondrous eyes
as those which flashed upon her now in sudden recognition, then terror,
then rage--not a trace of tears in them, and all the white face cold and
still, not puckered up with woe, as she had expected to see it.
"So you have been a spectator, Lady Lisgard, of the late love-scene,
have you?" said Rose Aynton in a low and suppressed tone. "That was
very generous and like a gentlewoman--in one's hostess, too."
"Hush, Rose; do not say things that you may afterwards be sorry for. I
will tell you how it happened."
"Nay, do not trouble yourself, my Lady; I can guess. You knew Sir
Richard had made an appointment with me here, and you wished to hear
with what rapturous gratitude the penniless girl would consent to be his
bride. I hope you did hear, madam, since you took such trouble."
"Yes, Rose; I did hear. Your cruel words shall not rob you of my
sympathy. I am sorry for my son, of course; but I am sorry for you also.
I had been worried, vexed by many things of which it is not necessary
to tell you; I came hither for solitude, and wearied out by many a
sleepless night--nights of care, girl, such as I trust you may never
know--I fell asleep in yonder recess. I never heard you enter the room
at all. I woke up while you were speaking, but scarcely knew whether I
ought to reveal myself or not. I heard you reject poor Richard; then,
when he had gone, I thought that you repented having done so. I was
moved at seeing you look so white and still. I felt for you, Rose,
with all my heart, and came out, when I might as easily have remained
concealed, to try to comfort you. My poor dear girl!"
"That was very kind," returned Rose quietly. "But if I had behaved
otherwise, would you then have welcomed me as your daughter-in-law?
Please to tell me that."
"If I should say 'Yes,' you would not believe me, Rose. So why ask me
such a question. Moreover, the matter is settled now for ever. He would
be a doting lover, indeed, who would forgive such a repulse; and Richard
is the last man in all the world to do so."
"Do you think so?" answered the young girl with an incredulous
smile. "You have forgotten surely your own youth, Lady Lisgard."
"What know you of my youth, girl?" asked my Lady hastily, her pale
face flushing with emotion.
"Nay, do not be angry," returned the other coldly. "I meant
nothing, except, that when a woman is young she is very powerful. You
say that I have lost Sir Richard, and therefore you pity me. Now, I will
wager by this time to-morrow that I could win him back again."
Was this the humble and submissive girl who came to Mirk four months
ago, almost from school, and whom she had treated as a mother treats her
child? The conscious belle of a London season could not have spoken with
a greater confidence; the most practised husband-hunter with a cooler
calculation. "Come," continued Rose, "if you really are so sorry
for me, Lady Lisgard, and so distressed upon your son's account, have
I your permission to do my best to repair this common misfortune?"
My Lady could scarce conceal a shudder at the thought how nearly had
this coldblooded scheming girl become her daughter-in-law. Whatever
objections she might have had to such a match before--and they were
in themselves insuperable--seemed to have grown to twice their former
proportions.
The girl's determination and self-confidence alarmed her, too, for
that result about which she had before felt so certain. At all hazards,
she was resolved to prevent an attempt at reconciliation being made.
"No, Rose; I do not wish you to try to recover the affections of Sir
Richard."
"So, so; then we have the truth at last, Lady Lisgard. You are not
willing that I should be daughter-in-law of yours. You grudge me such
great good-fortune as to be allied with the race of Lisgards: and yet
it fell to your own lot--as I have heard--even in a more unexpected
manner."
"Miss Aynton, what I was is no affair of yours," replied my Lady with
quivering lips. "You have only to remember what I am."
"I do so, madam, very well. I see you held in honour by all people,
and without doubt, justly. Your position is indeed to me an object of
admiration, perhaps, I may add, even of envy. Is it not natural that it
should be so? And when your son offers to lift me from my present low
estate to place me as high, why should I hesitate to take advantage of
such a proposal? I have refused him, it is true; but now, being, as
you say, repentant, why should I not strive to recover what I have let
slip--wealth, honours, title"----
"Rose Aynton," returned my Lady, clasping the girl's white wrist,
and speaking in very earnest but broken tones, "I warn you, do not do
it. Even if you succeed, you may not win all you dream of. Strive not,
I charge you, for your own sake, to undo what has been done. I have
reasons for what I say beyond any that you can guess. If you would be
happy, do not endeavour to ally yourself with this family."
"Lady Lisgard, what can you mean?" ejaculated the girl, her white
face flushed at last, her wide flashing eyes no longer hard and cynical,
and her every feature impatient for reply.
"I mean simply what I say. Seek not to be Richard's wife. If you
want money--and I know from your own lips it is not love which prompts
you--you shall have such wealth as is mine to give. I had meant it for
a different purpose; but that is no matter. Only do not seek to win
back my son; and when you leave us, I will bless you for your
forbearance--and for your silence, Rose."
"Yes, Lady Lisgard, I will say nothing of all this," returned the
girl thoughtfully after a short pause. "I promise you, too, that I
will never speak of love to Sir Richard further; and as for your offer
of a bribe, though I do not know that I have ever shewn myself so greedy
as to deserve it--I will forgive you even that."
"Thank you, thank you, Rose," answered my Lady eagerly. "I dare
say, in my haste and trouble, I may have said things to offend you, and
if so, I am very sorry. You have doubtless your troubles too."
"Yes, I have," answered the girl gravely; "and I should like to
be alone with them for a little, Lady Lisgard, unless you have anything
else to ask of me."
"Nothing, Rose--nothing; you have granted all I wished. You will be as
undisturbed here as in your own apartment; nay, even more so; for Letty
will not think of coming here to seek you out. Nobody ever comes into
the Library."
My Lady leaned forward as she spoke, and kissed the girl's smooth
brow, cold as a tablet of alabaster, then softly left the room.
Rose Aynton stood for a full minute, listening, eager and motionless as
Echo herself, before she stepped to the door, and turned the key.
"No more spying, my Lady!" ejaculated she; "my hostess has her
secrets, it seems, as well as I. It would be well if I could discover
hers before she found out mine. What could she mean by cautioning me,
for my own sake, not to ally myself with the Lisgards? She is not a fool
to think to frighten me with a mere gipsy's warning--threatening much,
but meaning nothing."
What reasons can those be against my becoming her daughter-in-law, which
are 'beyond any that I can guess?' If I could only get this proud
dame beneath my thumb, then, indeed, I might recompense myself somewhat
for having missed Sir Richard. To think that I should have lost a prize
like that through mere humility of mind! 'Yet even if you succeed,'
said she, 'you may not win all you dream of.' Those were her very
words. 'Haste and trouble' alone could never have suggested them
to her, although they may have made her indiscreet enough to utter them.
What has put my Lady in such low spirits of late, and kept her so
moped up within the Abbey walls? How came she alone here in this place,
whither, as she says, 'No one ever comes?' She must have been hidden
in yonder recess in the far corner, or we must needs have seen her, when
my love-sick swain and I were walking up and down.
Swift and noiseless, like some beautiful wild beast upon the trail,
Rose Aynton crossed the room, and scanned, with a cruel look in her dark
eyes, the little study over which was printed Legal.
"I never heard that my Lady was given to law," muttered she
derisively. "True, she said that she had been sent to sleep, a thing
which any one of these folios one might think would compass. But why
did she come hither to read at all? There must have been something of
interest to attract her. The books on this side do not seem to have
been touched for ages; but here--yes, some one has been to these quite
lately, for the dust has been disturbed, and here, if I mistake not,
is the dainty print of my Lady's fingers. We are getting warm, as the
children say at Hide-and-Seek. What have we here? A slip of paper for
a marker, torn cross-wise from an envelope with Lad upon it. It was
surely imprudent of my Lady to use her own address for such a purpose.
Wills! Ah, she has been studying the art of making wills, I dare say.
Considering Sir Richard is already so well off--and since I am not to be
his wife--it is to be hoped she will leave her money to son Walter; and
some, too, to poor dear Letty, for she is one who will never learn to
help herself in this world. It is well for her that she has not to
live by her wits. If she had been in my position, she would have been a
governess. Yes, it's all about Wills this book. And why should not
my Lady make a will, being of ripe age, and yet not old enough to
sniff that smell of the charnel-house, which renders the operation so
unpleasant a duty to the aged? I am afraid--unless, indeed, I could find
the will itself--that I have but discovered a mare's nest after
all. However, here are more book-markers; come, let us combine our
information. Succession! That's only the same story. Illegitimacy!
Great Heaven, but this is more than I had bargained for!"
The girl stepped swiftly to the open window, and pushed the heavy folds
of hair behind her ears. "I feel my blood all rushing to my brain,
and roaring 'Ruin!'" murmured she. "If this sudden fear has any
real foundation, then indeed am I hoist with my own petard. No wonder
she warned me against alliance with her race, if what I here suspect is
true. They will need wellborn suitors themselves, she meant, to make up
for what is lacking in their blood, and mayhap money too. The will
of old Sir Robert may be disputed. The Succession--but no, I had
forgotten--there is no one to succeed save her two sons, for they have
not a relative beyond themselves in the world, these Lisgards; but the
title--that would be lost, of course. That's what she hinted when
she said I might not gain the thing I counted on, even though I won Sir
Richard. He cannot know of it; he could not be so proud if he had the
least suspicion of any blot in his own scutcheon. How he would wither
if one said to him: 'Thou Bastard!' And yet I gravely doubt whether this
discreet madam, his mother, has not one day tripped. 'What know you of
my youth, girl?' cried she a while ago, white, as I thought, with anger;
but it was fear, it seems. She comes here alone to find out for herself
by study what secret course to follow, or what hidden dangers to avoid,
having no counsellor in whom she can confide. That seems so far certain,
or she would surely ask her son himself, being a lawyer, or that wise Mr
Arthur Haldane, whom I so honestly dislike, for their advice. It may be
all this bodes as ill for Walter as for his brother; it may be that it
bodes the younger the best of fortune, and the elder the worst. That
would be a brave day, indeed, for some one, on which the proud young
baronet should sink to plain Mr Richard, and the poor captain rise to be
Sir Walter Lisgard! And, again, there may be nothing in all this, after
all. Time will doubtless shew, and it shall be my task to hurry Time's
footsteps towards the discovery."
CHAPTER XI. UP EARLY.
|IT has been justly observed that one half of the world does not know
how the other half lives. The statement is a very safe one, and might
have been made a great deal more comprehensive by the philosopher who
uttered it without risking his reputation for sagacity. We do not know
how our next-door neighbour lives, except in the sense of what he has
for dinner, which may indeed be discovered by the curious; nay, we
often know not how our own household lives, how our very sons conduct
themselves when not at meal-times and under our very eyes, what pursuits
they really follow, what hopes, what fears, what ambitions they
in secret entertain. It is well, indeed, and should be a matter of
congratulation, if we are quite cognizant of the "goings on" of our
wives and daughters. It is strange to think what a world in little lies
under the roof of any great mansion, such as Mirk Abbey. How interesting
would the genuine individual biographies--if one could only get
at them--of such a household be, from that of the mistress of the
establishment (whose troubles we are endeavouring to portray) down
to that of the under kitchen-maid, concerning whom we have "no
information," but who has doubtless her own temptations, wrongs, and
troubles also, which concern her with equal nearness, although they may
not be so genteel! It is probable that the true history of the second
gravedigger in Hamlet would be to the full as interesting as what we
know of that philosophic Prince himself, though his father had not
been murdered by his uncle, albeit even that may have been the case,
for aught we know. But, alas! the novelist has not the power which the
Devil on Two Sticks possessed of lifting the tiles off the attics;
but has generally to content himself with such glimpses as he can obtain
through the keyholes of the first and second floors.
Taking advantage of even this moderate privilege, we are sometimes
rewarded with phenomena. Thus, it is little less than a portent to see
Captain Walter Lisgard, who is not generally addicted to early rising,
up and dressed upon a certain May morning before the clock on the great
stairs has sounded three. True, he has been out of bed once or twice
at such an hour on other occasions, but then it was because he had not
retired to rest the night before. He has done that, however, this time,
or, at all events, has exchanged his evening-dress for morning-costume.
Some people do get up at the most premature hours, even in winter, and
light their own fires, and retrim the midnight lamp to pursue literary
or scientific labours; but if Captain Lisgard has got up to study, we
will eat him. What can he be about? He gropes his way down the
great staircase, where darkness is made visible by streaks of grayish
light--which is not yet dawn--struggling through cracks and crannies;
and he stumbles over the heavy rug beneath the bottom step, and swears
with involuntary emphasis. Then he listens a while, to see what will
come of that. The great clock on the hall-table ticks reprovingly:
"Don't, don't--shame, shame!" as he never heard it tick before;
and hear and there breaks forth an expostulatory creaking, as though
from moral furniture, which has no such scruples in the daytime; but his
ejaculation has aroused no living being.
Softly he turns the key of the frontdoor, softly withdraws the bolts,
and would as softly have slipped out, but that there is suddenly a
jar and a whir, and the opening door is held fast by an iron hand.
"Confound the chain!" exclaims the captain. "It is as difficult
to get out of this house as out of Newgate." Then, when all is still
quiet, he emerges upon the stone steps with an "I wonder, for my
part, how burglars are ever discovered," and takes his way towards the
village. The gates are locked at the end of the avenue, and the
porter and his wife are doubtless fast asleep, as well as fair-haired
Polly--dreaming perhaps of himself, thinks the captain with, a
half-contemptuous, half-complacent smile--but Master Walter, who is as
active as a cat, climbs the stone pillar by help of the iron hinge, and
"drops" noiselessly on to the road. He passes up the humble street,
where each cottage is quiet as the grave--two blessed hours intervening
yet between its inmates and their toil, and makes for the Lisgard
Arms. The inn stands on a slight elevation, so that he sees it some
time before he nears it. "Why, the place is on fire!" mutters the
captain; and certainly there is some extraordinary illumination taking
place in one of the apartments. A flood of light pours from it as from
some Pharos, as though to beckon benighted folks whither good ale is to
be found; and yet the house is always shut at eleven, in conformity with
the squire's orders.
"It's that infernal idiot Derrick himself who has done it,"
continues the captain. "That's his room, I know. Just as if he could
not have got up in the dark, as I did: a fellow that probably never had
more than a farthing-dip to light him any morning, before he went to
Cariboo. I wonder, for my part, he can dress without a valet. What a
stuck-up, vulgar dog it is! How I hate his pinchbeck ostentation, and
still worse, his dreadful familiarity! If it could only be found out
immediately after this Derby that he was a returned transport, with
five-and-twenty years or so of his sentence still unexpired, how
delightful it would be! I really think that he is least objectionable
in the evenings, when he is drunk. There is something original in his
brute-manner of swilling; a sort of over-driven-ox style about his
stagger, which would make his fortune upon any stage--where there was
room enough for the magnitude of the exhibition. Certainly, one has to
pay for the society of this sort of gentry, and still more for their
friendship. Alas, that I should have made this fortunate savage fond of
me! I wish I could feel as Valentine did with Orson, instead of being
much more like the too ingenious Frankenstein, whose monster became his
master. However, that has not come about yet--notwithstanding meddling
Mr Arthur Haldane's warnings.--Let me see, it was arranged, I think,
that I was to whistle to this animal." Master Walter drew a silver
cab-call from his pocket, and executed upon it the disconsolate cry of
one who in London streets between the closing of the night-houses and
the rising of the sun desires a Hansom. Instantly the light from the
inn began to diminish--once, twice, thrice; and then the casement
became blind and rayless like the other windows. "That beggar had
four candles lit!" ejaculated the captain with irritation. "It was
a mercy that he did not bring out the village fire-engine! Here he comes
with his eternal pipe, too. I daresay he had the imprudence to light
that before he left the house, and Steve's red nose will smell
it." There are some men who always look the same no matter at what
hour you come upon them: fresh, and hearty, and strong, they have but to
duck their heads in cold water, and straightway the fatigues of a weary
day or a sleepless night are utterly obliterated. They rejoice like
giants to run their courses without any sort of preparation in the way
of food and sleep, such as the rest of mankind require. Against this
healthy animalism we protest, by calling it rude health; and to those
who are of a less powerful constitution, it is naturally an offensive
spectacle. Walter Lisgard had himself by no means a delicate
organisation; his complexion, though pale, was far from sickly; his
limbs, though models of grace rather than of strength, were of good
proportions and well knit. But he was conscious of looking heavy-eyed
and haggard, and he secretly resented the robust and florid appearance
of the unconscious individual who now joined him--a man at least
twenty-five years his senior.
"I suppose you have been accustomed to get up at these unearthly
hours at the gold-diggings, that you look so disagreeably wide-awake, Mr
Derrick," grumbled he. "You would very much oblige me if you would
but yawn."
"Get up! Master Walter; why, I've never been to bed," answered the
bearded man with a great guffaw. "The fact is, that I took a little
more than was good for me last night, and I did not dare lie down,
knowing that we had this business on hand so early."
"Why, one would think, by the amount of light, that you had been lying
in state, like some deceased king of the Cannibal Islands," returned
the other peevishly. "Was it your habit to use two pair of candles in
your bedroom in Cariboo?"
"Well, I never had a bedroom there, that you would call such, as I
have told you again and again, Master Walter; but I have burned twenty
candles at a time when they were selling at Antler Creek at five dollars
a pound. You imagine, I suppose, that it is only you gentlemen who live
at home at ease who have money to spend; but let me tell you that is not
the case. I will go bail for my part, for example, that I have paid more
sovereigns away in twenty-four hours than your brother, Sir Richard,
ever did in a week."
"My dear Mr Derrick, you are boastful this morning," said the
captain quietly: "it is my belief that you have taken a hair of the
dog that bit you overnight."
"Maybe I have, and maybe I haven't, Master Walter; but I shall burn
just as many candles as I like. I have worked hard enough for my money,
and, dam'me, but I'll enjoy it. Why, when I was at New Westminster,
I had my horse shod with gold, sir; and if I choose, I'll do it
here."
"You would have a perfect right so to do, Mr Derrick," returned the
other gravely; "and for my part, if your horse should cast a shoe in
my neighbourhood, I should warmly applaud your expensive tastes. But you
must have been really very rich, to do such things. Now, how much do you
think you were worth when you were at New Westminster?"
"That's tellings, captain," responded the other with a cunning
chuckle; "but when I was on Fraser River, me and my mate Blanquette,
we made"------
"Well, now, what did you make?" urged the young man, as the other
hesitated.
"Well, we made nothing for the first five days," answered Derrick
drily--"nothing at all.--How far have we got to go to reach the
Measured Mile by this road?"
The two men had left the village, and were pursuing a winding chalk-road
that led, but not directly, to the Downlands at the back of Mr
Chifney's stables.
"It is a very circuitous route," returned Master Walter frankly;
"and I was in hopes it might be shortened to the fancy by hearing
you tell something of your own story. But, of course, I have no wish to
press you to tell it against your will. You have conferred obligations
upon me enough already, I am quite aware."
This was the first sentence of conciliation, not to say of civility,
that the young man had spoken, and heretofore his air had been cross or
cynical; yet no sooner did he evince this little of good-will, than
the manner of the other softened at once to a degree that was very
remarkable in so rough a man.
"Don't talk of obligations, lad, for I like you--ay, so well, that I
wish you were son of mine; not that I am fit to be the father of such as
you either; I know that well."
"If I were your son, I am afraid you would have a good deal of trouble
with me, Mr Derrick," replied the young man laughing: "I am not a
good boy."
"That is true, Walter Lisgard; and yet I never saw a face that took
my liking as yours does--save once. I could not tell what drew me so
towards you, when I first met you up at the Farm yonder; but now I know
very well."
"Then it is to the similarity between myself and some other favoured
individual that I am indebted for your regard? That rather robs the
compliment of its flavour."
"Ay, my lad; but you are dear to me for your own sake also, although,
indeed, I scarce know why."
"Thank you, Mr Derrick."
"True," continued the other thoughtfully, without noticing his
companion's flippant tone, "you are like--ah, Heaven, how like you
are to one that's dead and gone! Indeed, I can refuse you nothing
while I think upon it. It is not everybody, however, lad, to whom I
would humour by telling exactly what I'm worth. While a man is merely
known as rich, he may have any sum, and be looked up to accordingly;
but when his wealth can be reckoned to a pound, he loses credit. If
Manylaws wins at Epsom, I shall be worth--ay, near a hundred thousand
pounds."
"I suppose no one in Cariboo ever made a sum like that by
gold-digging, eh?"
"I think no one, Master Walter. There was no claim so rich as my
mate's and mine at Snowy Creek, and it did not yield that sum. But, by
Heaven, how well I remember what it did yield. It seemed to me then that
I should never run risks any more, but live on what I had in content and
plenty; and yet here I am, this very morning"----
"My dear sir," interrupted his companion gaily, "it appears to me
that you are taking gloomy views. What is life without excitement?"
"Ay, that is very well for you, lad, who have something to fall back
upon, if your little schemes should miscarry. Excitement in your case is
only another name for amusement; but in mine"----
"Well, in yours, Mr Derrick?"
"Do not call me Mister; call me Ralph, lad--that is, if you are
not ashamed of me altogether.--You are ashamed, I see. Well, never
mind.--Let me see, I was speaking of Cariboo, was I not? Well, success
or failure there was a question of life and death. One might be a
beggar, or one might be the king of the colony. I had known what poverty
was--and that is not merely being without money, mind. I have
lived among a savage people for months who had neither gold nor
silver--nothing to hoard and nothing to spend save shells picked up on
the sea-shore, and strung on sea-weed for a purse; and I was as poor as
they; but yet it was not poverty. But I had felt the sting of that
in many a crowded city, and I came to Cariboo to escape from it. If I
should make my thousand pounds or so, I would buy a farm, or a share in
a ship, and live a quiet respectable life to the end of my days. While
making these good resolutions, my ready money--which was also all I had
in the world--was melting fast. With the last ten pounds of it, I bought
the half of a small claim at Snowy Creek. Blanquette and I sawed our own
lumber and made our own sluices. It was no light work even for me, who
had been used to rough it. There was twelve feet of top-stripping to be
removed before we could hope to reach the pay-dirt. For the first five
days, we made nothing. I would have sold my share in the whole concern
for a couple of pounds, and begun life with that afresh; but on the
sixth day we found fourteen ounces of gold, and I was worth fifty
pounds. Then I would not have sold my chance for scarcely any sum that
you could name. I would have shot any man that had jumped into our
pit, spade in hand, just as I would have shot a dog. Your brother, Sir
Richard, may talk about the rights of property, but he never appreciated
them as I did then. On the seventh day, we found forty-five ounces; on
the eighth, sixty. The find kept on increasing, till it rose to four
hundred ounces daily, when we employed eight hands to clear away the
tailings. The whole area of the place out of which I scooped my fortune
was not eighty feet by twenty. I found for my share twelve thousand
pounds in it."
"And you brought that safe to England, did you?"
"No, lad, I did not. I spent five hundred pounds of it in
champagne--we drank it out of buckets--for one item."
"And in candles, Ralph," asked Master Walter smiling--"how much in
candles?"
"In one thing and another, dear lad, I spent four thousand pounds
before we landed in England. Even what was left would have seemed
affluence six months before----But there, what's the good of talking?
There's the rubbing-down house, is it not? and I shall soon know
whether I am going to get a second fortune, or to lose what I have."
CHAPTER XII. THE TRIAL
|THE sun had risen, and the long waste of Down stretched far and wide on
all sides; a broad and level track as smooth as any lawn, with here and
there a long but gentle slope, marked the exercising-ground used by
Mr Chifney's horses. This glistened in the early rays like a path of
silver. But fringing it on one side lay a great patch of gorse, and this
quite twinkled with green and gold from the gossamers, whose slender
fibres covered it as with a veil. The air was fresh and odorous with a
hundred pleasant scents and in the distant vale the morning mists were
lifting from field and farm, from tower and town, as at the command of
some enchanter. Nothing was heard but the occasional "tink, tink" of
a sheep-bell from the still sleeping folds. It was a scene to charm
eye and ear; but Captain Walter Lisgard of the 104th Dragoons, and
Mr Derrick from Cariboo, were persons upon whom the Dawn and its
concomitants were a good deal thrown away.
"You are sure this is the right place?" inquired the Colonist as
they reached a long low-shuttered building, half brick half wood, where
the horses were wont to be rubbed down after their gallops.
"Ay, this is it right enough," was the reply. "I dare say they are
all inside there waiting for us. It does not do to be seen at this sort
of work. Yes, here they are."
Inside the doorway of the shed in question stood Mr Tite Chifney, in
company with a gentleman of advanced years, in a white greatcoat and a
new broad-brimmed hat, somewhat resembling a bishop's.
"How are you, Lisgard?"
"How do you do, my Lord?" were the only salutations that passed
between the members of the two parties, who had met entirely upon
business.
"Come and beat the furze with me, will you, Derrick? the captain has
not his gaiters on. It is well to make quite sure that we are all alone
before we begin," said the horse-trainer. The two men accordingly
stepped into the gorse, and commenced walking through it in parallel
lines, as though in pursuit of game.
When he came to a patch of gorse a little higher and thicker than the
rest, Mr Chifney struck it violently with his foot as if for rabbits.
All of a sudden, there was a violent ejaculation from Derrick; he threw
himself down upon some crouching object, and then came a struggle and a
choking scream. "Hollo, don't kill the fellow," exclaimed Chifney
running up. "See, he's black in the face, man.--Master Walter, my
Lord---help, here, help!"
The two men who had been left in the rubbing-house came quickly forward,
but it took the combined strength of all three of them to release the
poor wretch from the powerful grasp of the Cariboo miner.
"Damn the rogue; I 'll teach him to come spying here," cried he,
nodding with his head towards a shattered telescope, upon which he had
just stamped his foot. "I'll squeeze his throat for him."
"You seem to have done that already, sir," said the man in the
broad-brim coolly; "a very little more of it, and you would probably
have had your throat squeezed for you by the hangman. Poor devil, he
doesn't seem to have much beside his life belonging to him, so that it
would be hard to take that."
A wretched object, clothed in ragged black, and with wisps of straw for
shoes, wet with the dew amid which he had been lying, and shivering with
pain and fear, hear crawled to the last speaker's feet.
"Don't let 'em murder me, my Lord. They will if you don't
interfere," screamed the wretched "tout," whose mission it was to
procure racing intelligence under difficulties of this sort, but who had
been fairly cowed by Derrick's rage and violence. "I swear to you
that I will never tell a soul that I have seen your lordship"----
"Quiet, fool!" interrupted the other sternly, "unless you want to
have your lying tongue cut out.--It's bad enough," whispered he to
the trainer, "that he should have seen me hear; but do you think he
has seen the horses?"
"That's quite certain, my Lord," returned the trainer coolly; "and this
is a mouth as can't be shut about that matter. But he shall see nothing
more of this morning's work.--Come here, you sir."
Taking the trembling wretch by the collar, he led him to the edge of the
furze, and, having securely tied his arms and legs, enveloped his head
in a horse-cloth which he brought out of the rubbing-house. From the
same building there now emerged two horses, not in the clothes in which
exercise was generally taken, but ready in all respects for racing, and
ridden not by stable-boys as usual, but by regular jockeys.
"There is no question about it but the bay is the best-looking,
my Lord," said the trainer, in answer to something that had been
addressed to him; "but handsome is as handsome does. You would not
thank me for praising The King on Epsom Downs, after he had been
beaten by an outsider such as yonder horse."
"Who rides the creature?" inquired the other sharply, and looking
contemptuously towards the clumsy black, who was no other than our old
friend Menelaus. "Dam'me if he don't look more fit for a hearse
than a race-course.
"Jack Withers, my Lord--a man that was with him in France, and
thoroughly understands what the horse can do; and, indeed, there is
no other that can ride him as should be. That's the worst of these
foreign horses--they are so full of tricks. I've known that black stand
stock-still in his gallops, and shoot his boy off just like a rocket. He
can't abide a strange seat."
"Of course Withers rides him in the great race," observed the other
thoughtfully.
"Certainly, my Lord, just as Tom Uxbridge here will mount The King.
What's the good of having a trial-race unless with the same jocks as
is to ride them afterwards?--Starting from that white post, up the rise
yonder, round the fir clump, and so back again, is the Derby course to
a yard.--Master Walter and Mr Derrick, will you be so good-as to bear a
hand, and help me out with the steps?"
"Ain't the gentleman in the broad-brim going to use them as well
as me?" observed the Colonist insolently, and keeping his hands
resolutely in his pockets. "I never engaged myself to be his
body-servant, as I know on."
There being no answer to this appeal, Captain Lisgard and the trainer
once more entered the rubbing-house, and reappeared dragging with them a
movable platform upon wheels, and furnished with a flight of steps after
the manner of a pulpit. From the top of this, one might see the whole
course from end to end, and upon it the four spectators took their
station close to the starting-post.
"Now, my lads, are you both ready?" inquired the trainer of the jockeys,
who were getting their fuming horses into line. "This handkerchief will
serve for a flag, and when I drop it, let there he no false starts. One,
two, three--now off!"
As the handkerchief left his fingers, the bay and black leaped forward
as with a single impulse; the next moment each had got into his stride,
and was away like the wind.
"It is amazing how they keep together," muttered his Lordship in
an uneasy tone: "I should not have thought the Frenchman had had such
speed in him."
"It is the hill which will decide the matter, my Lord," returned the
trainer in a low tone; "the ground is rising already. There! and see,
the black draws ahead."
"Ay, the black has it!" cried Derrick with a frightful imprecation.
"I will lay fifty-pounds to ten on Manylaws."
"I take you, sir," said the man in the broad-brim coolly, as with
race-glass in hand he watched every movement of the horses who were now
nearing the fir-clump: "there has something happened to that big-boned
animal of yours, I fear. What is it, Chifney?"
He was about to pass the glass to the trainer, but Derrick roughly tore
it from his grasp, and applied it to his own eyes. "It's one of his
infernal jibs," exclaimed he; "and yet---- Well done, Jack Withers;
that's a five-pound note in your pocket.--Perhaps you'd like to look
again, my Lord, for their position is a little altered."
"The black is gaining fast," ejaculated Captain Lisgard, his pale
face aglow with excitement. "He has recovered all he lost by that
false step. What a pace they are coming down the hill! By Heaven, The
King is beaten! Tom is using the whip."
"Just what I expected," murmured the trainer.
There was a thunder of hoofs, the smack of a whip again and again, a
flash of colour--first black, then bay--and the trial-race was over.
"In a second and a half less time than the last Derby," said his
Lordship drily, after consulting his stop-watch.
"I think I did not bring you here for nothing, my Lord," said the
trainer confidentially.
"Certainly not, Mr Chifney," returned the other bitterly: "I find
myself a poorer man than I had thought to be three minutes ago by fifty
thousand pounds. Moreover, I have made the acquaintance of one of the
greatest ruffians that I have ever met even upon a race-course. It is
altogether an excellent morning's work."
"It would have been worse for you, my Lord, if you had not come,"
answered the trainer with some stiffness; "you would not have thanked
me if you had seen this for the first time on Epsom Downs."
"Very true--very true, Mr Chifney. But you must excuse my feeling a
little annoyed by the results of this gallop. And as for this gentleman
with the beard--when he has done shaking his hands with his jockey----
Here are two five-pound notes for you, sir--the amount of my bet."
"Keep it yourself, my Lord," exclaimed Derrick, waving his hat round
and round in frantic joy. "Or stay, if you're too proud.--Here,
Jack, is a fiver for you; and here, you poor devil in the horse-cloth,
here's another for you, to heal your windpipe, which, I believe, I
squeezed a little too hard a while ago. If the race had gone agen me,
you'd never have got a shilling of compensation, so you may thank
Manylaws."
The trainer's hand was clapped upon the incautious gold-digger's
mouth with considerable emphasis, but it arrived too late. "The
cat was out of the bag." The tout had learned the very piece of
intelligence to obtain which he had gone through so much.
Bound and bruised, and in evil plight as he was, the fellow could not
help indulging in a sly chuckle, while his four enemies (for the jockeys
were already in the rubbing-down house attending to their panting
steeds) regarded one another with looks of blank dismay.
"You have done it now, Mr Derrick," observed the trainer
lugubriously. "We shall never get thirty to one--no, nor ten to
one--against Menelaus again.--Great Heaven! why, you wouldn't kill
the man!"
The gold-digger had drawn a clasp-knife, half dagger, half cutting-tool,
from his pocket, and was quietly feeling the point of it with his thumb.
"I have done wrong," said he, "but it is a wrong which is not
without remedy. No, I am not going to murder this gentleman--at least
not now; but I have something of importance to tell him.--Look you here,
Mr Tout. I am not a respectable person any more than yourself, in a
general way; but there is probably this difference between us--I am
a man of my word. What I say, I will do, I always do do, at all
hazards. If a man robs another of his gold in the place where I come
from, we shoot him: it mayn't be right, but that is the principle on
which we act. You will rob me of all I have in the world if you tell
what you have seen to-day; consequently, mark me, if you do tell,
I will kill you. Of this you may be well assured. That is the only
satisfaction which will be left me. You have felt my fingers, but
you will in that case feel this knife. I hope I make myself well
understood---- No, Master Walter, this is not your business, but a
private matter between this person and myself. I want to take a good
look at him, so that I may know him again anywhere; alone or in company,
in England or across seas; let him be sure I shall find him out; and I
want him to take a good look at me. Mine is not the face of a man who
falters in his purpose, or who, having suffered a wrong, puts up with
it, I think, and does not revenge himself."
He knelt down, and set his bearded cheek quite close to the luckless
tout. Each looked into the other's eyes--one inquiringly, with a
half-timid, half-cunning glance; the other sternly, vengefully, like a
judge and executioner in one.
"I will never tell!" quavered the miserable wretch--"s'help me,
Heaven, I never will!"
"Yes, you will," returned Derrick coolly; "I can see that you are
a babbler born; and I don't ask impossibilities. Moreover, it is but
just that you should derive some advantage from my folly. In a week's
time, you may tell your employer what you please. In the meanwhile,
there is your five pounds. I wish to act as fairly by you as I can;
but if the odds rise or fall respecting these two horses within seven
days--as they can only do if the result of this trial gets wind--then I
shall know where to find a sheath for this knife." With these words he
cut the rope that bound the man's arms and legs, pushed the five-pound
note into his hands, and bade him be off; whereupon off he shambled.
Neither the trainer nor the man addressed as "my Lord" had stirred
or spoken a word during this interview, and Captain Lisgard had only
once made a movement as though to interrupt it. All three were well
enough pleased that the gold-digger had taken the task of imposing
silence into his own hands. In all likelihood, he was merely threatening
the fellow; and if not, they did not wish to be accessories before the
fact to--to any vengeance he might choose to inflict upon the offending
tout.
"Well, gentlemen, we have now six clear days wherein to make our
arrangements," said Derrick, "and a good deal may be done in that
time. True, but for my stupid conduct, we might have had more time
before us; but I have made what amends lies in my power."
"You believe, then, that yonder rascal will keep his word, do you?"
inquired the trainer incredulously.
"I think so, Mr Chifney. I shall certainly keep mine," returned the
other gravely.--
"Master Walter, we had better be moving home."
At these words, the party separated--like men who have each their work
to do, and are glad to be quit of their companions, in order that they
may set about it--with no more ceremony than a parting nod. The man in
the broad-brim rode away upon a shooting-pony, which awaited him in the
rubbing-down house. The jockeys paced slowly towards their stables, each
horse now clothed and visored as though it had been merely out for early
exercise; while Mr Chifney walked briskly homeward by another route.
Derrick and Captain Lisgard returned together by the way they came, and
plodded on for some time in total silence.
"You will put all your money upon the black un now, I fancy, Master
Walter?" observed the gold-digger at last, as they drew near the village.
"I have done that already," replied the young man frankly. "I was
thinking rather of hedging when the odds fall."
"Nay, do not do that, lad," rejoined the other earnestly; "the
thing is a certainty. The King was the only horse that we had to fear.
On the contrary, my advice is, 'Put the Pot on.'"
"The Pot is on, with all I have to put in it, Mr Derrick. You forget
that I am not an eldest son, and nobody lends money to a younger."
"Ay, true; there's that confounded stuck-up coxcomb, Sir Richard.
But look here, my lad. In this pocket-book I carry all I am worth in the
world, for in Cariboo there are no banks, and a man at my time of
life does not readily change his habits. Here are five hundred pounds
entirely at your service. Nay, I told you that I had taken a liking to
you, and I would give them to you right-away, only I suppose you are too
proud to accept them, save as a loan."
"Mr Derrick--Ralph--you are very, very kind," said the young man
hesitatingly; "but this is a large sum."
"At the present prices, it is ten thousand pounds if Manylaws
wins," replied the gold-digger, rubbing his hands; "and if
Manylaws does not win--well, I shall not, I hope, be an importunate
creditor. I do not say: 'Do not thank me,' lad, or I like you to
smile like that. You are very, very welcome. But here we part; you to
your home and friends, and I--well, I am used to be alone. I shall
not see a friend's face again till I see yours. Good-bye, dear lad,
good-bye."
With a hearty hand-shake and more thanks, Master Walter strode gaily
away through the still slumbering village, reclimbed the avenue gate,
and let himself noiselessly in at the front-door. As he passed on tiptoe
along a gallery, on one side of which lay his sister's apartment, and
on the other that of Miss Rose Aynton's, a door opened, and an anxious
voice whispered: "What news, Walter?"
"Good news," replied he in the same cautious tone, and glided on to his
own room.
CHAPTER XIII. AT SIR ROBERT'S GRAVE.
|IT had been observed, as I have already said, that my Lady had not left
the Abbey grounds for these many weeks; but there had been one exception
to that course of conduct. She had never omitted to visit, as usual,
her late husband's grave, and to lay upon it a posy of spring-flowers,
gathered by her own hands; but she did this now in the evening, instead
of the daytime, as heretofore. It was not, however, likely that any
intruder should be found there at any hour.
Whoever of the household saw her walking in the direction of the little
church--only a stone's-throw from the servants' offices--took
great care to avoid her, or to appear, if they needs must meet her,
unconscious of her errand; and while she was there, no domestic used
the little zigzag path among the grass-grown graves that formed the
short-cut to the village. The country folk were forbidden at all times
to approach the Abbey by that way, so the sacred spot was almost as
private as though it had been an appendage of the Abbey itself, as it
had been in the old times. Mirk lay quite out of the high-road, so that
no stranger "stretching his legs," while the coach changed horses,
ever strolled into its God's-acre to spend a profitless five minutes
amid its solemn records; nor, indeed, was there anything in the
graveground, whatever might have been in the church, to attract such
persons, in the way of monument or effigy. Yet the humble graves were
all well kept; not broken or dinted in, as one too often sees them in
such places; nor did the head-stones lean this way and that, as though
they strove to wrench up the very mounds they were set to mark; nor were
the long rank grasses and the nettles permitted to overgrow the spot,
and hide it from the sun. Upon every slab, however, save one, time was
doing its work, covering with moss and lichen the gray surface, and
filling up the letters on the stones---just as in the hearts of the
survivors it was healing the sense of loss, and effacing the memory of
the departed one. The sole exception was the stone which commemorated
Sir Robert's death. His marble cross was without speck or flaw. It
stood in the western corner, in a little plot of garden-ground of its
own, and beside it was a vacant space, left there by his widow's
desire, that she might herself be laid there when God's good time
should come.
It is the evening of the day upon which Master Walter got up so early,
and my Lady has come, as usual, to her husband's tomb. Her hand
is resting on the top of it, whereon she has just hung a chaplet of
fresh-gathered flowers; but her look is fixed upon the western sky,
where the glory of the sunken sun yet lingers. It may be but a simple
faith that associates Heaven with the sky, but it is a very natural one.
My Lady's soul was longing to be at rest somewhere beyond those
quiet clouds which flecked that golden deep. Death is not so invariably
hateful to us as the divines would paint it; it has no terrors for the
Good--nay, sometimes not for the Bad either--while to the Wretched it
would often be more welcome than the dawn. "If I could only 'fall
asleep,' as is said of the saints," thought my Lady, "here, and at
this instant, how well for all would it be! Some only live for others,
they say, but the best that could possibly happen to all I love would be
that I should be laid in my grave. And some have died for others, as God
knows I would die for any one of my dear ones, and yet it would be
sin in me to die. Ah, husband, husband! thou that liest here under the
flowers and the sky, I would to Heaven that I could lie down beside thee
now, and never wake! I trust thou dost not know this thing that troubles
me, and threatens mine and thine, or thy dear heart would be wrung with
pity, although thou wert an angel and in eternal bliss. And but that the
Almighty has fixed his canon against self-slaughter---- Those were happy
days in which I first read that!" mused she, interrupting herself,
and carried involuntarily into another current of thought; "we read it
together, you and I, Robert. My new life was just beginning then; never
had pupil such a kindly teacher as thou wert. I can bear to think
of that; but of thy love, thy noble generous love, thy patient
tenderness------ Spare me, great Heaven! I did so worship this dead man,
and now I live alone; and yet I would not have him here alive, to know
what I know, to feel what I feel, to dread what I dread--no, not though
we should be permitted to live together for years, and die within the
selfsame hour, as I used to pray we might. I thank thee, merciful God,
that I am bearing this heavy cross alone; give me strength to carry it,
and suffer me to do so--if it please thee--to the end, alone. It is my
fault, husband; all mine. When you pressed me to marry you, and I said
'No,' I should have said it more firmly. We were not fit for one
another.--No, no; not that! I will not say that. You made me what I am;
a wife fit for yourself, I do believe; not good, like you--not wise,
like you--but one who was a faithful and true helpmate, and with whom
you were content. If you could make a sign to me from the earth, or in
the air, this moment, I should not be afraid but that it would be one
of love. If you, perchance, have come to know every thought in my heart
that was in your time--or if you have read it since you died--or if you
read it now--still I should not be afraid! I will endeavour to do my
duty still; but ah! how foolish are they who say we always know what
is our duty! O Robert, what is mine?"
She wrung her hands in pitiful distraction, and throwing herself down by
the graveside, whispered, as though to the deaf ear beneath: "The sea
has given up its dead to shame me, and thy children, because of me. What
is there for me to do for them except to die?"
"Hollo, missus! what's wrong wi' you?" inquired a deep hoarse
voice. "Drunk or sober, I never could abide seeing a woman cry."
At such a time and place, the sudden and unexpected interruption might
well have sent a shudder, to any woman's heart, and it was no wonder
that my Lady trembled in every limb. But she gathered herself together
with a great effort, and drawing her thick crape veil over her face,
arose, and steadily confronted the intruder.
"Why, it's my Lady herself!" cried the new-comer
derisively--"the party as I've promised myself a good look at before
I left these diggings. And, dam'me, but now I'll have it. If I'm
anyways rude, you will please to put it down to the brandy in which I
have been drinking to the very good health of the big black horse.
Now, don't be so cursedly proud; your son and I--not Sir Richard,
for he's a---- Well, you're his mother, so I won't say what I
was agoing to about him; but Master Walter, he and I are great
friends.--Now, why do you wince? He ain't so high and mighty but
that he can borrow money of your humble servant; but there--there's no
obligation in that, for I love the lad. He's like--like a dear friend
of mine, who was drowned in the sea, years and years ago. Lord, how you
do tremble! Why, I'm the last man in the world to hurt a woman, bless
you. My nature is altogether soft where they're concerned; and if it
were not so, there was a woman once, my Lady, drowned and dead--the same
as I was speaking of--for whose sake every woman since has been in my
eyes sort of sacred-like; that is, unless I was in drink."
It was painfully evident to my Lady that the person who was speaking to
her was in the unhappy condition he had just referred to, for he lurched
from side to side until he had bethought him of steadying himself by the
marble cross; but there was a sort of pathos in his voice, too, which
was not the mere maudlin tenderness of the drunkard. If he had not been
drunk, he might not have been tender, but there was evidently genuine
feeling in the man, which seemed to deepen as he went on. "Now, though
you do not speak, I know you're sorry for me. If I should lift your
veil--there, I'm not agoing to do it--I am sure you would have a tear
for a poor fellow who has been knocked about the world for three parts
of his life, and has not made a single friend--not one, not one; and if
he went back home, who would not see a face he knew--it is so long ago
that he was there--and who needs a woman's voice to comfort him if
ever a man did."
"What's all this to me, sir?" asked my Lady in low and broken
tones. "I wish to be left alone here--by this grave."
"What--is--all--this--to you?" returned the man with vindictive
deliberation, "Have you no heart, then, you proud woman, like your
eldest son?" Then once more altering his manner, he continued: "Now,
do not be angry with me, or you may be sorry for it, but rather pity me.
This grave contains what is dear to you, it seems; but you have those
alive who love you also! Now, I have not even a grave. The only creature
on earth who ever loved me--and I loved her too, ah how dearly, though
I could not keep even then from drink--she lies buried beneath the
stormy waves. I cannot come, as you can, to this tomb, and say: 'Here
she sleeps,' and weep over it, and be sorry for my sins, for I know
not where, in all the waste of ocean, her bones may lie. So, for many
years I never looked upon the sea without the sense that I was looking
upon one great grave. Am I speaking truth or not?"
He stopped and clutched her by the arm, and fiercely bade her tell him
if she believed his words or no.
"I do believe you, sir," returned my Lady firmly. "Beneath your
bronzed and bearded face, I see your woes at work, and I am sorry for
you."
"Thank you, Lady; you have a pleasant and kind voice, with music in it
such as I have not heard for many a day. You are sorry for me, but you
know not half my woes; I have never told them to any human ear; although
at times, when I have been all alone--upon the treeless prairie, not
knowing whether I was on the right track or lost, or on the mountain-top
in strange and savage lands, and chiefly when a solitary man on
shipboard, keeping watch while others slept--then have I spoken of these
things aloud, and asked of Heaven why it used me so. But now--as some
black cloud will overpass a mighty plain, and never shed a drop, but
presently, on coming on a little valley fenced with round green hills,
will straight, dissolve in rain, so I, who have been so silent for so
long, am moved to speak by you. What magic is this you bear about you,
woman? Let me see your face."
"There is no need for that, sir," answered my Lady, stepping back,
and motioning with her arm with dignity. "The magic of which you speak
lies only in a feeling heart and an attentive ear. If it is any comfort
to you to tell your story, I will gladly listen to it."
"Yes, it seems to be a comfort," replied the other thoughtfully,
"although I never cared to speak of it before. You see me, Lady, now, a
brawling, drunken wretch--upon whose reckless soul there may be murder,
to-morrow or next day, as like as not--but anyhow a broken man. I was
not always thus. When I was young, I was a hopeful and hard-working lad
enough--only a little thoughtless. I was honest, too, notwithstanding
that the law and I fell out; but I was fond of jovial company and good
liquor, and what I got at sea--for I had a smack of my own at
Bleamouth--that I spent very quickly on shore. If I had had a wife, or
even a mother, I think it might have been different; but I had no
relations, or at least none who were my friends. I could not bear
advice, and much less interference and dictation, and so, you see, I was
alone in the world--until I met with Lucy Meade---- You shiver, my Lady.
Am I keeping you too long in the night-air?"
Lady Lisgard shook her head, and murmured: "No; go on."
"'Tis thirty years ago this very year--that's many thousand days,
and tens of thousand leagues have I sailed since then--and yet, I swear,
it seems but yesterday I crossed those water-meadows with my gun--for I
was after moorfowl--and came upon her cottage on the Blea. White-walled,
white-roofed--for in those parts they paint them so--it nestled under
a rocky hill, crested with heather; and in front the river ran, swollen
with recent rains, through a broad weedy flat, and so, between the
rounded sand-hills, to the sea. Before the cottage was a porch with
honeysuckles trained upon it, and one full-flowering fuchsia upon either
side. Then, as I drew near, I saw her sitting in the porch mending her
father's net. Ah, Heaven, I see her now!"
The speaker paused and sighed; but looking out into the viewless air,
as if upon some picture hung in space, he did not mark my Lady start
and clasp her hands, as though some dreadful thing had come upon her
suddenly, against which none could help her but only God alone.
"It is a story, Lady Lisgard, that you doubtless know," continued
the man, "for even among lords and ladies love will come. I asked
her for a drink of water, and she brought me with it Hope, Resolve,
Repentance--I know not what. From that moment forth, I lived my life
anew. Then the next day, and the next, I sought the cottage; and when I
had won my way with Lucy--that was her name, my Lady--did I tell you?--I
pleaded my cause with the old fisherman, her father--her mother being
already ours--but for a long time in vain.
"She was his only child, his only prop and stay, and he was proud of
her, as well he might have been, for she was gentle of speech as you
yourself or any lady born, and scholarly and wise beyond her humble
state, and, young as she was, already had had many a suitor; but she had
never loved but me. 'Tis like enough you cannot fancy that; but then
my former self was not like this." He pointed to his heart with a
scornful gesture, as though something loathsome had taken the place of
what had wont to be there.
"Besides, the fairest, purest creature upon earth was she, and she took
all things for pure. Not that there was much against me either, except
that I loved good liquor; besides, I only drank for pleasure then, and
now---- But let that be. Well, we were married. We lived with the old
couple at the cottage, as Lucy wished, partly for their sakes, partly,
as I have often thought since then, for mine--that I might be kept out
of bad company, such as there was plenty of at Bleamouth at that time
--poachers, smugglers, and idlers of all sorts. But this was done too
late. I have said that the Law and I fell out: that was for poaching
--and Curse the law, say I, which rich men make for the poor perforce to
break. I never poached after I married, but before that time I had shot
a hare or two; and once--but months ago--there had been a fray with
keepers, and I had clubbed my gun, and struck my hardest, like the rest.
There had been broken bones on both sides, but the matter had blown
over, as I thought, when all of a sudden I received certain news that I
was marked for one of the offenders, and that men were coming to take me
from my Lucy's arms to jail. I told her this, for I had kept nothing
from her all along, and I knew that she had courage, or she would never
have married such a man as me; but I forgot, in my selfish roughness,
that it is one thing to be brave in things that concern one's self,
and another to be able to bear to see others suffer. 'Ah, Heaven!'
exclaimed she, 'but this will kill my father! To have his honest house
entered by men in search of felons, and to see his daughter's husband
with the gyves upon him--that will be his death, I know.' The auld
wife said so likewise.
"They were right, I think, for when we came to break the thing to him,
and warn him of what might happen, although all was said to excuse what
I had done, and to soften the consequences that might come of it, he
raved like one distracted. 'Let him leave my cottage!' cried
he; 'he has worked mischief enough already; he has robbed me of my
daughter's love, and now he would take from me my good name. Let him
leave this honest roof!' 'But where he goes, I must go, father,'
replied Lucy, with her arms about the old man's neck; and in the end
he was brought to see that it must be so. So I changed my name to that
of Derrick, which I bear now, and fled from home to a great seaport, and
there, on board an emigrant-ship bound for the other side of the world,
took passage not only for myself and wife, but for her parents. It was
agreed that all were to begin life again in a strange land, so that I,
too, might begin it once more with that fair start which I had lost in
my own country. Thus the poor old man and his wife were torn from the
comfortable home that had sheltered them for half a century, and forced
in their old age to cross the seas. No, not to cross them: would to
Heaven they might have been suffered so to do! It was ordained that I,
who had thus far caused their wretchedness, should also be the means of
their death. A most terrible storm overtook us at midnight, while yet
in sight of lights on English land, and in the midst of it our vessel
sprung a leak. I knew that I had a brave woman for my wife, but then I
found she was a heroine; I knew my Lucy was good as she was fair, but
then she proved herself an angel. There were men on board who screamed
and wailed like children. She never uttered a cry or shed a tear. She
felt that she was going to heaven with all she loved (for she always
thought the best of every one), and therefore death had no terrors for
her. But I--I felt myself a murderer. I did what I could to save the two
old people, and got them into the only boat that left the ship; but it
had not parted from us twice its length, before it capsized before our
eyes. Lucy had refused to leave me, and when the vessel began to sink,
I lashed her to a spar, and then myself; and so for a little time we
floated. But the great waves drenched us through and through, and dashed
upon us so that we had hardly time to breathe. The spar was not large
enough for both our weights, which sank it too low in the water; and
so I secretly unloosed the cords that fastened me, and clambered to my
Lucy's side, and kissed her cold wet cheek, and whispered: 'Fare
well, Lucy.'"
Here the speaker paused, and covered his rough face. My Lady, too, was
deeply moved. For near a minute, neither spoke. Then the man resumed:
"I slipped into the sea, and struck out aimlessly enough, but with
the instinct of a swimmer. Fool that I was to wish to live!" Again he
paused; but this time, to mutter an execration.
"And did not all your care and unselfish love suffice to save her?"
asked the listener tenderly.
"No, Lady. She was drowned. I never expected otherwise in such a sea.
The whole ship's company were lost, except myself. When nearly spent,
I came upon a huge piece of the wreck, and held on to it till daylight,
when I found myself at sea. I would to God that it had not been so! I
was nearer Heaven at that time than I have ever been since, and I ought
to have perished then, when all which made life precious had already
gone: it would have been far better to have died with her, than to live
without her. But I did live. After two days and three nights of hunger
and thirst, a vessel picked me up, a sodden mass of rags, half-dead and
half-mad. They nursed me and made me well--it was a cruel kindness--and
after many days, I was able to tell them what had happened. 'Ay,
then,' said they, 'the pilot was right who came to us off Falmouth.
It was the North Star that went to pieces in the storm; you are the
sole survivor, man, of all on board. Nothing came on shore that
night, or could have come on such a coast as that, save spars and
corpses.'"
There was silence for a minute's space: the strong man's chest
laboured in vain to give him breath for utterance; in vain his horny
hand dashed the big tears from his brown cheeks; they still rained on.
"Alas, poor man!" said my Lady, in a broken and pitiful voice, "I
feel for you from my very soul. And when you found your three-weeks'
bride was dead--I think you said you had married her but three
weeks--what then became of you?"
"What matters?" asked the man half-angrily, "It mattered nothing even to
myself. The vessel took me--it was all one to me whither she was
bound--to New South Wales. And in the New World I did indeed begin a new
life--but it was a far worse one than in the old, I was reckless,
hopeless already, and I was not long in becoming Godless. When that is
said, a man's history is the same, wherever he lives, whatever he does,
and however he ends."
He stamped his foot upon the ground, as though he would keep down some
rising demon, and his voice once more resumed the hoarseness it had
exchanged for something almost plaintive throughout his story.
"Ralph, Ralph," began my Lady reprovingly, and touching his rough
sailor's sleeve with her gloved hand----
"And how the devil should you know my name is Ralph?" interrupted
the other in blank amazement.
"My maid, Mary Forest, told me it was Ralph," returned my Lady
calmly.
"Did she? Well, that's no reason why you should call me by it.
However, since you seem to feel so unexpected an interest in your humble
servant, I will make bold to ask a favour of you." His manner was
rough and defiant as ever now, like that of a sturdy vagrant soliciting
alms of a defenceless woman.
"You are angry with yourself," said my Lady quietly, "for having
given way to feelings which do you honour; that is a base sort of regret
indeed. You try to persuade yourself that I have affected a sympathy
which I did not feel, but you do not succeed. I cannot but be interested
in one who, with all his faults, has certainly in the hour of death and
danger behaved nobly, and who must, I feel assured, have the seeds of
good in him yet, despite his wild and despairing talk."
"No, woman, I have not," returned the man with vehemence. "Dismiss
that from your mind at once. Ralph Derrick is no hypocrite, whatever he
is, and he tells you now that he is a lost man, in the sense which such
as you understand it. I don't know why I have spoken to you as I have
done just now--some springs of feeling that I had deemed were quite
dried up flowed at your voice as they have not done these thirty
years--but don't imagine that I am soft-hearted. I am not a bad fellow
when I'm sober, and not put out; but then I'm seldom sober, and
I'm very easily put out. Your son, Sir Richard, has put me out, for
one. I should be sorry for him if he and I had much to do with one
another.--But there, you need not turn so pale; for, for your sake--and
for Master Walter's sake, who has got my Lucy's eyes, and look, and
voice, God bless him--Sir Richard is safe from me; albeit I have let fly
a bullet before now at men who have wronged me less than he has done--an
insolent young devil! It was a man like him, one of your landowners,
forsooth, whose persecution drove me from my native shore, and
drowned my wife and the old couple. Damn all such tyrants, says Ralph
Derrick"----
It was difficult to associate the depressed and solemn speaker of a
few minutes back with this passionate and lawless man, his huge fingers
opening and shutting in nervous excitement, his eyeballs suffused with
blood, and each hair of his vast beard, as it seemed, bristling with
vengeful fury.
"You were saying that you wished to ask a favour of me, Mr Derrick?"
interposed my Lady quietly. "What is it I can do for you?"
"Well, you can do this," returned he roughly: "you can cease to
set your waiting-maid, Mary, against me, as you have hitherto done. I
am not a bad match for her, as she knows, in point of money; and if she
finds herself able to put up with little starts of temper, and not to
grudge me a drop o' drink at times, why, what is that to you?"
"Have you told her, may I ask, of what you have been telling me, Mr
Derrick?"
"Yes; at least I told her I was a widower; I never felt a call to tell
her more; she would not understand, look you. She asked me what this
leaden locket was I wear about my neck, with this poor broken piece of
stick in it, and something withered clinging to it still, and I told her
it was a charm against the ague. Now, you--I'll wager you can tell me
what it holds."
"No, not I. How should I know?" inquired my Lady hurriedly.
"You do know, anyway. This fellow is not the sort of man to carry
charms, you think; and all that's sacred to him in the world or out
of it hangs on his love that's drowned. This, then, must be some
token--were there not fuchsias upon either side the porch where first
they met? There, now, you have it, I can see."
"You plucked, perhaps, a piece of fuchsia when you plighted troth,"
murmured my Lady.
"Ay, when we plighted troth," answered the other mournfully; "and
breaking a twig in twain, all blossoming then, but now--see, dried to
dust--each kept a half. I have seen far up the hills in Mexico a piece
of the true Cross, that's held to be the richest possession that the
Church calls her own in those parts; well, that's not sure; it may be
or it mayn't be what they term it; but this poor twig has never been
out of my sight or reach, and so I kiss and worship this, my relic, as
no devotee can do.--Now, what would Mary Forest say to that? She is not
like my Lucy; no, indeed, no more than I am like the Ralph of those old
days; and if she were, should I be fit for her? My Lucy married to a
drunken, gambling ruffian! Tis blasphemy to think upon it. But as for
this wench, your waiting-maid, she and I are suited well enough. She
wants a husband, and is willing to take me; while I, who have been
tossed so long on the stormy billows of life, shall be glad to come to
anchor. It is you only--she told me so herself--who stand in the way."
"And would you have me, then, advise this woman--being my faithful
friend as well as my servant--to unite her fortunes with a man who, from
his own lips I learn, is hopeless, reckless, Godless, a drunkard and a
gambler"----
"Hell and Furies!" broke forth the other impatiently, "will
you dare to use what I have just now told you against myself! Beware,
beware, proud woman, how you cross a desperate man! Since my life is
worthless, as you paint it, you may be sure that I shall hold the risk
of losing it lighter than better men: there is nothing that I dare not
do to those who cross me."
"I have no fear for myself, sir, and least of all things, Ralph
Derrick, do I fear death," answered my Lady calmly. "Yet willingly I
promise that I will never breathe one syllable to human ear of what you
have said to-night."
"So far so well, my Lady. When I found you here, I was on my way to
court your waiting-woman, but she does not expect me. She has written
me her answer 'Yes' or 'No' before this, and I shall get it
to-morrow in London: it was agreed between us she should do so. I was
to have started to town this afternoon, but I overslept myself--not but
that I got up early enough, as Master Walter will witness--and missed
the train from Dalwynch. I am going thither to-night; but, in the
meantime, I thought I could come back and take a farewell kiss from
Mary, and her 'Yes' from her own lips. I will receive no other
answer, and if such should reach me, I shall know from whom it comes.
The matter is in your hands, I know; come, let us part friends."
"God forbid we should part enemies," replied my Lady fervently;
"I will wrong you in nothing, but be assured I shall do my duty at all
hazards."
"And be assured I shall have my way, Lady Lisgard, at all risks,"
returned the other grimly. "Are you too proud to take my hand at
parting?"
For a single instant, my Lady hesitated; then reaching out her fingers,
they met his own stretched out at fullest length, for the tomb lay
between them. They shook hands across Sir Robert Lisgard's grave.
CHAPTER XIV. ONCE MORE IN MY LADY'S CHAMBER.
|AS my Lady left the churchyard by the wicket-gate, she caught the
flutter of a female dress that flitted on before her, and vanished in
the regions belonging to the domestics. Was it possible that anybody
had been a witness to her late interview, or worse, a listener to
the conversation? It was in the highest degree improbable, but not
impossible. By crouching down behind the low stone wall, next Sir
Robert's tomb, a person in the Abbey grounds, without doubt, could have
overheard, and even, with caution, might have watched them. It chilled
my Lady's heart to think of it. Yet what could be more unlikely? What
servant of hers would have ventured upon such an outrage? Could Mary
Forest have so far forgotten herself, actuated by an irrepressible
curiosity to hear what her mistress and her lover could have to say to
one another at that strange time and place? It was much more probable
that some domestic about to use the short-cut through the churchyard,
had seen her coming from it, and hastened back, to avoid a meeting. At
the same time, the suspicion added to my Lady's troubles.
These were serious and pressing enough already, Heaven help her! and
yet, urgent and perilous as they were, it was not of them that she first
thought when she found herself once more in her own room. There are
no circumstances, however tremendous, which have power to quench the
susceptibilities of women: their feelings must have way, no matter
how dangerous the indulgence in them, how immediate the necessity for
action. The meshes of a net which threatened destruction to herself and
all that were dear to her were closing in around Lady Lisgard, and, calm
as she looked, she knew it well--well as the wily salmon that poises
motionless, and seemingly unconscious of his peril, in the red pool,
below which the fisherman has set the spreading snare; but my Lady turns
her back for a little upon the tide of woes that is setting in upon
her--a spring-tide that may reach Heaven knows how far--and seeks
the inland Past. It is the last time that she will ever visit it, and
therefore she cannot choose but linger there a while, and shed some
bitter tears. Her door is locked, for none must see her wishing
"Good-bye," and the windows are wide open to the air, which blows
the flame of her reading-lamp hither and thither. She needs air, poor
lady. A waft of wind that has swept some snowy steppe would have been
grateful to her throbbing brow that April night; and as for light, a
very little is enough for her purpose. Those few old letters she is
reading, taken from a secret drawer in my Lady's desk, are as familiar
to her as her prayers, and she seems to hold them almost as sacred. Yet
one is not even a letter, but only a piece of folded note-paper, torn at
the creases, and yellow--nay, yellower than mere age could possibly have
turned it. It has been damaged by seawater. Within it are two locks
of hair, quite white, and a few words in faded ink, Frank Meade and
Rachel Meade, with a date of five-and-thirty years ago.
She takes out the silver tresses, and looking on them reverently for a
few moments, kisses them, and puts them back in the secret drawer--but
not the writing; that she holds above the lamp until it has caught fire,
and watches it until it is quite consumed, and the last spark has gone
out. Then she brings forth from the same hiding-place two letters,
evidently both by the same hand--a very unclerkly one--ill-spelled and
ill-composed, but which have been to her more dear than any written
words for a quarter of a century; for they were letters of a dead man,
written, the one when he was her accepted lover, the other after he
became her husband. They are letters of the Dead no longer; for he who
was thought to have died is still alive, and being so, has become an
enemy more terrible than any who should seek her life; one who, by
simply saying: "This is my wife," would thereby dishonour her,
disgrace her children, and even shame the memory of that righteous man
whose tomb she had just visited, and wept over with such honest tears.
And yet with tenderness, though mixed with a certain awe and shrinking,
does my Lady look upon those time-worn words, notwithstanding that the
sacredness of Death is no longer on them. The first is what is called
a love-letter, a note filled with foolish fondness, expressed with
vehemence, but without coarseness; the second a tissue of passionate
self-reproaches; the writer accusing himself of bringing a curse
upon her happy home in having married her; then stating, as though
reluctantly, certain arrangements he had made at the seaport,-from which
his communication was dated, for the passage of herself and parents by
the North Star. Both are signed Ralph Gavestone.
"So loving and so penitent," murmurs she, "Time cannot surely have
worked so ill with such a nature as he would have me believe! When he
first sang that carol to my ear, I thought it might have been an angel
singing:
O'er the hill and o'er the vale
Come three kings together.
"Alas, alas! to think with what terror I heard him sing it the last
time. He may not be more changed within, perhaps, than he is without;
since, notwithstanding what he said about his looks, I knew him again
the first moment my eye lit upon him on yonder lawn. I wonder whether he
would have known me, supposing he had snatched away my veil. Merciful
Heaven, what a risk was that! nay, is not every moment that he remains
at Mirk a risk! What if he heard the name of Gavestone coupled with
mine? I am sure he recognised something in my voice, although I
disguised it all I could. He must never come back hither--never, never!
He must be as dead to me now as I deemed him to be before. God knows
I pity him from the bottom of my heart: and also"--here she
paused--"yes, and also that I do not love him--no, not him, although
I love the man that wrote these words. I never concealed it, no, never,
from my--Sir Robert himself. I said: 'I have no love to give you,'
all along; 'only respect, devotion, duty.' And those, Heaven knows,
I gave. If all together, and a hundred other gracious feelings added,
could have made up love, then Sir Robert would have had that; but they
can not. He knew it, noble heart, and was content. He knew that
in that drawer I kept these very things that came on shore with me
when----O Ralph, Ralph, Ralph!" My Lady shook with sobs; and then, in
her agony, mistaking the noise of her own passion for some interruption
from without, started up from the desk on which she had thrown herself,
and listened.
Nothing was to be heard save a faint peal of laughter from the
croquet-ground, where Walter and the two young ladies were endeavouring
to play by lantern-light--a frolic she had heard them planning at
dinner-time. Yet even that slight tidings from the world without
recalled her to the present. "I must burn all proofs," she murmured, as
though repeating some authoritative command of another rather than any
determination of her own. Then with a steady hand she took the letters,
and burned them to the last atom, reading the words with greediness, as
though, as the flame consumed them one by one, the remainder had grown
more precious, like the Sibyl's books. There was more to try her yet.
The last thing which the little drawer contained had yet to be brought
forth--a leaden locket, the facsimile of the one which Derrick had
just shewn to her in the churchyard. Within, although almost, as he had
expressed it, "dried to dust," was a tiny sprig of wood. She emptied
this into the hollow of her hand, and instantly the wind whirled all
away. My Lady uttered a low moan of anguish, then sat with the poor
token in her hand, which, worthless and vacant as it was, yet, to her
streaming eyes, held all the treasure of her youth. "Alas, alas, for
the time that is no more!" cried she. "Who could have thought that
I, with my own hand, should destroy this precious pledge? Kind Heaven,
direct me--teach me what it is right to do! Till death should part us,
did I swear to cherish him; and now, though we both live, alone he roves
the world. It may be I should win him back to his former self, and
save a soul alive. He has loved me always--always; and he loves me now,
although he deems I have lain beneath the waves these thirty years, and
although he seeks------ But that shall never he. I will tell Mary Forest
rather to her face: 'I myself am married to this man whom you would
wed.' He shall not bring another sin upon himself and shame on her,
and----Ah, Heaven help me; what is that which I should do in this sad
strait?"
It was terrible to see my Lady's look of woe, as, rising from her
chair, she paced the room, and now prayed Heaven for aid, and now stood
listening to the mirth that still broke in from out of doors by fits,
and now gazed fixedly upon the little leaden case within her hand,
as though there were some magic help in that. "Farewell, Lucy,"
murmured she; "the last words that I ever thought to hear him say,
which, having said, he dropped, to save my life, into the wave. And now
I see him storm-tossed in the sea of sin, certain to sink, without a
plank but this poor ancient love of his to which to cling, and yet I may
not stretch a finger forth to aid him. Ah me, what base return! Why did
I not cleave to him, although I thought him dead, as he to me? Why was I
not faithful to his memory, as he to mine? Why say: 'In three years'
time, Sir Robert, if your fancy still holds firm, I will be yours?'
Why not repeat that 'No' I gave him first? Then, earning my own
living as I was born to earn it, I might have lived on alone until this
day, when, meeting with my poor lost Ralph once more, I could, without
a blush of shame, cry 'Husband!' and be to him indeed the guardian
angel his love paints I was. Heaven knows, I wish it for his sake alone.
I wish for nothing for myself but Death--yes, that would be best of all,
a thousand times."
My Lady's once plump face looked pinched and worn, almost as though
the Shadow for which she sighed was really nigh; her anxious eyes, not
softened by her tears, peered timorous as a hare's to left and right,
as though the tenantless room held some one who could read her secret
soul. Then sitting down upon the sofa, with her hands clenched before
her, she stared out upon the twilight, deepening down upon the windmill
on the hill. But presently, "Forgive me these black thoughts,"
prayed she with inward shudder. "If, as they say, the place reserved
for the wicked is filled with those who have promised themselves to do
some good, and have not done it, then haply those who in their minds
revolve some deadly sin which they do not commit, may be forgiven. I
will not, with God's blessing, thus transgress again. I know that
that is wrong, and prompted by the devil; but which is right and which
is wrong in this" (once more her eyes fell piteously upon the locket
in her hand)--"Lord help me in this trial."
Here Walter's ringing voice was heard upon the lawn beneath: "Never
mind pulling up the rings, Letty; they are the best burglar-trap a
householder can lay; only bring in the mallets and balls."
"My Walter!" exclaimed my Lady, starting up with haste. "Have
I forgotten you, then? My proud Sir Richard, too, disgraced,
dishonoured, shall men call you bastard? My sweet Letty--never, never,
never!" As though she dared not trust herself to think, she kept
repeating that sad word: then thrusting the dear token in the centre of
the wood and coals that were laid in the fireplace ready for the match,
she set all alight.
"Better for one to suffer than for three," she muttered to herself.
"The die is cast. I am My Lady still. I would my heart could melt away
like this dull lead, and weigh me down no more, and with this last relic
of the past, that every thought of it might likewise perish. It can
never he, I know. While this my life still holds--a life of lies,
a whited sepulchre--this sting will never lose its venom--never,
never!--Shade of the dead," cried she with vehemence, turning toward
the old church-tower, which stood up black against the rising moon,
"I charge you, witness what I do for you and yours! Here, in this
flame, I sacrifice not only this poor token, but the man that was my
husband; nay, who is, the man that I once loved, nay, whom I love now;
the man that laid his life down for my sake, with those two words, just
'Farewell, Lucy.' Great Heaven, is not this enough? Surely, now all
will go well--save for him and me. Is this too much to ask?... Forgive,
forgive: I know not what I said. Teach me to be humble, patient under
every blow, and no more vain regrets. I must act at once. What did
Arthur say? 'The matter lay in my own hands,' said he, whether this
man should stay at Mirk or not. How little did he know with what truth
he spoke! And I must speak to Mary without delay, for that I alone could
stop her marriage with this man. How true again? Well, I will do it."
Then my Lady washed her swollen eyes, and smoothed her hair, all tangled
and escaped from its sober bonds, unturned the door-key, and having
rung her bell, awaited with the lamp so placed that it threw her face in
shadow, the coming of her waiting-maid.
END OF VOL. I.
CHAPTER I. MISTRESS AND MAID.
|MARY," said Lady Lisgard gravely, when her attendant had closed
the door behind her, "I want to have a little serious talk with you
to-night."
"As you please, my Lady," returned Mistress Forest, in a tone which
the other, did not fail to mark: it was a very respectful tone--a more
humble one even than she was ordinarily wont to use--but there was a
certain deliberation and set resolve about it too, which expressed as
decidedly, as though she had used the words: "I am ready to listen,
madam; but I know very well what you are going to ask me, and I have
made up my mind already to answer 'No.'"
"Mary," continued my Lady earnestly, but not without a tremor in her
kind soft voice, "come and sit here on the sofa beside me, and let us
not be mistress and maid tonight, but only friends."
"Yes, madam;" and Mary's voice trembled too, for this unlooked-for
arrangement would place her, she knew, at a disadvantage in the argument
which was certainly at hand. "We have known one another many, many
years, Mary--more than half our lives--and I don't think we have had a
single quarrel yet."
"Not one, ma'am, not one," assented the waiting-maid; already, after the
manner of her susceptible kind, beginning to cry.
"I can remember you when quite a child, Mary; not fifteen years old; as
willing and kind-hearted a girl as the sun ever shone upon; and when I
had not a friend in the world, nor even so much as a coin that I could
call my own, and when I was weak and sick at heart, having lost all that
was dear to me, I remember who it was that tended and caressed me as
though I was her own sister."
"Don't ye, don't ye, my Lady; hush, hush!" cried the weeping Mary. "It
was only natural that I should take to a sweet innocent creature cast at
our very door by the raging sea. I often dream of that storm o' nights,
madam, even now; of the thunder, and the lightning, and the rain; and of
the flashes that were not lightning, but signals for help--that, alas!
we could not give--from the poor doomed ship. And how father and the
other fishermen, and many of the visitors themselves--and among them
poor Sir Robert--all crowded down to the Cove, for they could not
get nearer to the shore because of the waves; and I was with them,
sheltering myself in the brushwood as well as I could, and peering
through the branches to see the great white waves lit up for an instant,
and then the darkness shutting all things out except the roaring of the
storm. I mind it just as though it were but yesterday; and ah! my Lady,
shall I ever forget when that one great wave dashed up into the very
Cove itself, wetting us all to the skin, and knocking down young Jack
West, whom it almost carried back with it in its return, and then
the Great Black Spar, which it did carry back, with something white
a-clinging to it; when my father cried out: 'O my God, a woman!' and
all our hearts seemed stricken with a sudden shoot of pain. Lord! how I
cried, for my part, to think that a poor creature should he tossing in
that dreadful foam; and when I heard good Sir Robert's voice, clear and
loud as a bugle: 'One hundred pounds to the man who brings her ashore,
dead or alive!' I do believe I could have run out and kissed him. Ah,
my Lady, what a noble gentleman he was; for though he could not have
known how dear you were to be to him--you might have been an old woman,
for all he could see--how he worked and strove to save you; not by his
money alone, for no mre gain would have tempted men to do what was
done that night, but by risking life and limb. They made a double chain,
holding one another's hands, for there was no time to spare for ropes,
and went down almost among the breakers, where you were: my father and
Sir Robert were the two first men, God bless them!"
Here Mistress Forest paused, interrupted by incipient hysterics, and
my Lady herself cried like a child, but not in agony; her tears were
tribute to the memory of a gallant deed.
"I mind my father had a black shoulder--a place you could not cover with
both your hands--all along of the spar being driven up against him, but
they carried it up with you upon it safe into the Cove, and then there
was a great cry for us women to come down and help. Ah, how beautiful
you looked, my Lady, though we thought you dead, white, and cold, and
wet, with your long black hair dripping like sea-weed, and your tender
limbs all bruised and bleeding. It must have been a kind band as tied
you to the plank, for between your dainty waist and the rough rope there
was bound a sailor's jacket."
My Lady moaned, and held her bands up as though she would say,
"Forbear!" but Mistress Forest could not be stayed.
"There was little enough clothes upon you, poor Lady, just a bodice
and a petticoat, but round your neck there was hung a charm or two, and
perhaps that had some hand in saying you from drowning."
My Lady looked quickly up; how strange it seemed that the comment passed
by Mary Forest upon the locket (and the bundle of letters in their
little waterproof case) should have been so exactly what Derrick had
pointed out it would be. The coincidence reminded her of the task that
lay before her, and of the danger of delaying it.
"Yes, Mary, I indeed owe my life to you and yours, and I am not
forgetful of the debt. Your welfare is, and ever will be only second in
importance to that of my own children, and it is concerning it that I
now wish to speak with you. Your future"----
"You owe me nothing, my dear Lady, that you have not paid again and
again, I am sure," interrupted the waiting-maid hurriedly. "When you
rose to that high station, for which it seems to everybody you were
born, your hand was always held out to me; through good report and evil
report, you have ever stood my friend: it will be a great wrench of my
heart, dearest mistress, when I leave your service--as I shall have to
do, I fear, very soon."
"Mary!"
"Yes, my Lady. You see I'm not a young girl now; and it is not everybody
who has so good a chance as I have now of--of--settling in life. Service
is not inheritance, you know, my Lady, although I am well aware I should
never want for nothing"----
"Whether I live or die, Mary," broke in her mistress eagerly, "I have
taken care of that, good friend; and if I should die tomorrow---- But
you shall see my will itself, for it lies here."
She laid her hand upon the desk before her, but Mary checked her with a
determined "No, my Lady; no. I was never greedy--with all my faults,
you will grant that much, I know--and if I had been like Mrs Welsh,
and others of this household I could name--but that I never was a
mischief-maker--I might long since have put myself beyond all need of
legacies, and you never would have missed it. But Mr Derrick is himself
a person of property; a very rich man indeed for one in my condition of
life--not that I need be a burden upon any man, thank Heaven, for I have
money saved out of my wages--and very handsome they always were--and
that great present of good Sir Robert's still untouched: the most
generous of gentlemen he was. I am sure, my Lady, nobody felt for you as
I did when Sir Robert died; and you have often said how terrible it
was to lose a husband; therefore"--here for a moment her excessive
volubility flagged for the first time; she paused, and reddened,
then added, with the air of a mathematician stating an indisputable
corollary--"therefore, you must allow, dear mistress, that to find
one--particularly when one comes to my time of life--is not unpleasant,
nor a chance to be lightly thrown aside."
"That depends entirely upon the sort of husband he may be, Mary,"
observed my Lady gravely.
"Really, dear madam, with all respect, I think I am the best judge of
that," rejoined the waiting-maid tartly; "although, indeed, I never
thought to say such words to you. Sir Richard may have his likes and
dislikes, but I am not his slave; nor yet his servant, for the matter of
that. While Master Walter, who, saving your presence, everybody knows to
be worth a hundred of him, likes Ralph very much."
A pang shot across my Lady's face, and left it crimson, as though she
had received a blow; but the waiting-maid little knew what had brought
the colour there, although she felt that she had pained her mistress
deeply.
"God forgive me," cried she penitently, "if my foolish tongue has hurt
your feelings, my Lady! I did not mean to say aught against Sir Richard,
I am sure. I scarcely knew what I said, for when those are dear to
us--as Ralph has grown to be with me, and I don't deny it--are misjudged
and wronged, why, then, we are apt to say bitter things. This talk was
none of my seeking, my Lady; and although Ralph thinks that you are to
blame because of his being forbidden the Hall, and all the rest of it,
I have always told him you have never said a word to set me against him;
and oh, I am sorry you are doing it now, because what is done cannot be
undone, and"----
"Great Heaven! you are not married to this man?" cried my Lady, rising
from her seat with agitation.
"O no, my Lady--certainly not, my Lady," rejoined the waiting-maid with
a certain demure dignity. "There has been nothing underhand between us
in the matter at all, except, that is, so far as meeting Mr Derrick at
the back gate"----
"Did you go out to meet him to-night?" inquired Lady Lisgard sharply,
and keeping her eyes fixed steadily upon her attendant's face. "No,
madam, I did not."
"She is speaking truth," murmured my Lady to herself. "Who, then, could
it be whom I saw upon the churchyard path just now?"
"Although," continued Mrs Forest quietly, "I don't deny that I have
often met him after dusk, no other time being permitted to us; but
to-day he has gone to town."
"And you are to write to him thither to give him your final decision as
to whether you will become his wife or not."
"How on earth do you know that, my Lady?" inquired the waiting-maid with
a curiosity even beyond her indignation.
"I do know it, dear old friend," answered Lady Lisgard tenderly, "and
it is because of that knowledge that I have sent for you to-night, to
strive to persuade you to write 'No,' while there is yet time."
It was very seldom--not once in a year, perhaps--that Mary Forest was
ever out of temper with my Lady; but then such a supreme occasion as
the present had never occurred before. Underneath their mre superficial
relation of mistress and servant, they were more like elder and
younger sister; but then even sisters quarrel when the one wants
the other--generally under some pretence of mre prudence, not to be
listened to by a woman of spirit--to give up the man of her choice.
The ample countenance of Mistress Forest expressed something more than
Decision in the negative; there was an unpleasant smile upon her pale
lips, which seemed to say: "If you knew what I know, you would know that
you are wasting your breath." She sat with her plump hands folded before
her, like a naughty boy that has been put in the corner, but who
does not care--nay, more, who knows that he has got a cracker to put
presently under his master's chair, the results of which will make full
amends for the inconvenience he at present experiences.
"I will say nothing more, Mary, of the mutual esteem and affection
between us two, and of the pain that an eternal parting--such as your
marriage with this Mr Derrick would most undoubtedly entail--needs must
cost us both. I presume that you have weighed that matter in your
mind, and found it--however weighty--insufficient to alter your
determination?"
Mary nodded, sharply enough, but it was doubtful if she could have
spoken. Already her features had lost their rigidity, as though melted
by my Lady's touching tones.
"You have known this person--that is to say, you have met him some
dozen times--during a period of less than four months; yet such is his
influence over you, that you are prepared to sacrifice for him a friend
of thirty years' standing, a comfortable home, and a position in which
you are respected by all who know you. If I was speaking to a young
girl, Mary, I should not advance these arguments; but you are a--a
wise and sensible woman, and yet not of such a mature age that you need
despair of finding a suitable partner for the rest of your life."
Mistress Forest heaved a little sigh of relief, and her cheeks began
to tone down to something like their natural crimson; they had been
purple with the apprehension of what my Lady might have said upon the
subject of age.
"Now, what is it," pursued my Lady, "which has produced this confidence
in an almost entire stranger? Do you know anything of his former life,
which may be a guarantee to you for the stability of your future? Have
you ever met a single individual who is acquainted with it in any way?
For all you know, this man may have been a"----
"My Lady!"
For a moment, the relative position of Mentor and pupil were exchanged;
there was a quiet power about the waiting-maid's rebuke, for which an
archbishop would have given more than his blessing, if he could only
have incorporated it into a "charge."
"You are right, Mary," said my Lady frankly; "let us only speak of what
is within our own knowledge. Does this man's own conduct, then, give any
promise of lasting happiness to the woman who may become his wife? Is he
sober?"
"I believe he is fond of a glass, my Lady, as most men are who have no
home, or people to look after them. If he had a wife, he would never go
to the public-house at all, perhaps--he tells me so himself."
My Lady smiled faintly.
"Is he industrious and provident, Mary?"
"He has earned his money hardly enough, my Lady, and it seems only
natural that he should now spend a little in enjoying himself."
"But not fling his money to left and right--I use your own words, dear
Mary--and treat every chance-companion he comes across to liquor. Do you
suppose that at his age he is likely to change habits of this sort?"
"I am not aware, my Lady, that his age is anything against him," replied
the waiting-maid coldly. "He is not so like to run through his money as
if he were younger, and particularly when he has got some one to provide
for beside himself. And indeed, so far as money goes, he has thousands
of pounds; and if all goes well with him--and something has occurred
to-day about which he has sent me a line by hand, dear fellow, by which
it has been made almost certain that things will go well--he will be
a very rich man indeed after a week or two. There is some great race on
Epsom Downs"----
"O Mary, how can you talk so cheerfully of money acquired in that way.
If it is won to-day, it is lost to-morrow; and even if it were not so,
do you know that it is gained from those who can ill afford to lose it,
and who, having lost it, often turn to wicked ways?"
"I don't know about that, my Lady, I'm sure," responded the waiting-maid
demurely; "I leave all these things to my betters. But, I suppose,
if racing was a crime, Mr Chifney would not be let to have the Abbey
Barn--Sir Richard being so very particular--and Master Walter would not
for ever be up at the stables. Why, he and Mr Derrick are both together,
hand and glove, in this very business--something about a French racer,
it is; although, when you and I were at Dijon, my Lady, we never heard
of there being such a thing in all France, did we?--so my poor Ralph
cannot be so very wicked after all. And please, ma'am, it is no use
saying anything more about it, for I have written him that letter
already which he was to find in London, and put it in the post."
"And did you answer 'Yes,' or 'No,' Mary?"
"I answered 'Yes,' my Lady--that I would marry him--and begging your
pardon, madam, but I mean to stand to it."
CHAPTER II. CONFESSION.
|THERE is one serious disadvantage--which mistresses should do well to
remember--at which waiting-maids are always placed in disputations with
their domestic superiors; they cannot (except they are prepared for
instant dismissal) either quit the room, and hang the door after them,
or leave it open, and run down stairs "saying things" at the top of
their voices. Both these modes of procedure, so natural to the female
when "put out," are denied to them, for the same reason that when on
board ship they can't take champagne for sea-sickness as their employers
do; they cannot afford the indulgence.
Now, although Mary Forest was not debarred by mre pecuniary
considerations from flinging herself out of her mistress's room when
she cried, "And I mean to stand to it," there were other reasons which
prevented her from suiting to her words that very appropriate and
natural action. In all her blinding passion (and she was really very
angry), she never quite lost sight of the respect she owed her mistress.
Her devotion to her was such, that even while she listened to her most
unpalatable arguments against the man she had accepted for her husband,
her heart smote her with a sense of ingratitude towards the long-tried
friend, who, after all, she knew, was anxious for her happiness rather
than for her own mre comfort; and when she seemed most obstinate, she
had often been nearest to throwing herself upon her mistress's neck, and
exclaiming: "You are quite right, my Lady; and I believe I have been an
old fool all along." It was more with the desire of putting a stop
to this most unpleasant dispute, than because her determination was
absolutely adamantine and inflexible, that she once more reiterated:
"Yes, my Lady, I mean to stand to it," and fixed her eyes doggedly upon
the floor, as though she would not even encounter another questioning
glance.
"Mary," said her mistress solemnly, and after a long silence, "I am
grieved beyond all power of words to tell at what you have just said;
but the mischief may not yet be quite past mending. I have seen this--Mr
Derrick--this very night, and therefore he will not receive your letter
till, at earliest, to-morrow evening."
"No, nor then neither, my Lady, so far as that goes, for I was late for
the London post; I put the letter in the box for the very reason that I
might not be persuaded to change my mind by"----
"Then it has not yet left the village postoffice," interrupted my Lady,
hastily snatching up her bonnet from the table on which she had wearily
put it down upon entering the room: "there is time to stop it yet."
"No, my Lady; I heard the postman's horn half an hour ago; and if it
were otherwise, nothing would induce me to alter what I have already
written--nothing--nothing!" repeated Mistress Forest, emphasising her
last two words by beating with her foot upon the carpet.
"Alas, dear friend, you know not what you say," replied my Lady very
gravely. "Give me your hand, Mary; nay, do not withdraw it coldly, for
you will have need of comfort and support, almost as much, alas, as
I----Mary, Mary, this man is married already!"
The waiting-maid started from her seat with a shrill scream. "I don't
believe it, I won't believe it; it is false. How dare you tell a lie to
me, Lady Lisgard, only to gain your ends?"
"Hush, hush, Mary; did you ever know me to tell a lie, my friend? It is
true as that yonder moon is rising, that this man has a wife alive. Do
not weep so passionately."
"The perjured villain; the false, bad man; the wicked, wicked wretch!"
cried the waiting-maid, her eyes flashing through their tears.
"Nay, above all, do not blame him, Mary, for he knows it not himself;
he does not, indeed."
"What? Not know whether he's married or not!" sobbed the unhappy
bride-elect. "I don't believe that, at all events, even if I believe
you. He has married so many, he doesn't know rightly who is his wife;
that is what you mean, I see. Sailors are all alike. O dear, dear, dear,
when Mrs Welsh comes to know of it! And the monster will have got
my letter by to-morrow night, to shew about! How nearly have I been
committing bi--bi--bigamy!"
"Calm yourself, dear Mary, calm yourself. Your trouble is nothing to
what I suffer, and must continue to endure for my life long."
"Ah, my Lady, I daresay it is very bad to be a widow; but it's much
worse to die an old----leastways, at forty-fi--or forty-four, rather--to
lose---- O dear! what an honest man he looked, and such a beard and
eyes! I will never trust to appearances again. I daresay, it is
very wrong, my Lady, but I fee--fee--feel as though I could tear Mrs
Derrick's eyes out; I do, indeed." Here the bottle of smelling-salts,
which upon a certain occasion we saw used by Mary Forest for the
recovery of her mistress, had to change hands. The unfortunate
waiting-maid was taken with a very genuine fit of hysterics, and not
of the quiet sort either; and if her senses left her, it could not
certainly be said that she also lost the use of her limbs. At last,
exhausted in body, but also more reasonable as to her mind, she
whispered: "Mistress, dearest, tell me all you know." Then my Lady knew
that the time was come for her first self-humiliation. Throughout the
narrative that followed, they were sitting upon the sofa together, hand
in hand, but each had her face averted from the other, and only now and
then, by a convulsive grasp of the fingers, did Mary shew her sympathy
with her unhappy mistress. At first, she was too full of her own trouble
to interrupt by words, but soon the astounding revelation from my Lady's
lips overwhelmed every faculty of speech within her, and she sat like a
child who listens to a horrid story in the darkening twilight.
"We have known one another more than half our lives, Mary, said I, a
while ago, and yet there has been a secret between us all that time. I
have never kept anything else from you, but this was not mine alone to
tell; it was Sir Robert's also. When he asked me to become his wife
at Coveton, and you thought me so mad for first refusing him, and
afterwards for demanding such a long delay, I had a reason for it, which
he knew, but which you have never guessed. I was then the three-weeks'
bride of another man.--You may well start, Mary, but that is the
dreadful truth. The man, Ralph Gavestone, whom I mourned so deeply,
as being drowned with my dear parents, and all the rest of the ship's
company, in that great storm--which I would to Heaven had whelmed me in
its waves--was not my half-brother, as Sir Robert persuaded me to give
out, but my husband."
"You had no wedding-ring, my Lady, when you came ashore," murmured the
waiting-maid half incredulously.
"That is true, Mary. I know not how it was, but perhaps the cold and wet
of that dreadful night made my fingers shrink--you remember how wan and
thin I looked--and the ring must have dropped off; I never saw it after
I reached land. But I was none the less a widow--as I thought; and
although friendless, save for you, Mary--homeless and penniless, I
thought I could never take another husband to my arms, although the
raging sea had worked that rough divorce between us. At first, I
replied: 'No, Sir Robert, never;' you will bear me witness that I did.
Then, when he pressed me still, I bargained for three years. I thought
that he would tire of waiting for me, and get some fitter mate in the
meantime; I did, as Heaven is my judge. I was true to my poor Ralph--he
had saved me upon that spar at the risk, and, as I then believed, at
the sacrifice of his own life--as long as I--nay, I was true to him in
a sense for ever. Sir Robert was well aware of that. I do not need
justification from man or woman; God himself absolved me, I think, so
far. But that was an evil day, Mary, when I married. I was no more Sir
Robert's wife than you were, Mary. Think of that. And he was not
my husband. And our children, of whom he was so proud, are
baseborn--bastards. Sir Richard--is it not terrible? do you not wonder
that I live and am not mad?--he is not Sir Richard. And my dear, dear
Walter, he is baseborn too. And Letty--for whom her eldest brother
thinks nobody too high--she, too, is no Lisgard. If I had waited seven
years instead of three, this would not have been so. There are law-books
in the library which have told me so much; but I have no adviser--none;
no friend--yes, you, Mary, I know--but not one who can help me. Is not
this something worse than death itself which has fallen upon me!"
"And this man Derrick--he was Gavestone?" whispered Mary Forest in a
hoarse grating voice.
"Yes; did I not tell you so? I only found it out last Christmas Eve. I
knew his voice, and I knew the carol that he sang. For one thing only
do I thank Heaven--I who had reason, as I thought, to be thankful for
so many things--that Sir Robert is not alive. His sleep in yonder
churchyard is disturbed by no such ghastly dream. Ah, happy dead!"
"Mistress, beloved mistress," cried the waiting-maid, in an agony of
remorse--"forgive me that I have been thinking of myself these many
weeks, while you have been so burdened and tormented. Henceforth, I am
yours only. As I hope to get to heaven when I die, I will be true to you
whatever happens. Let us think what that may be."
"Nay, let us not think," exclaimed her mistress with a shudder, "or I
shall lose my wits. 'Would you have me picture what this house would
be should he come hither and claim me for his wife? Richard and he
beneath the self-same roof, and he the master! Would Walter--though
he herds with him, you say--brook this man as his equal? Would he not
loathe him rather, and how soon, ah me! unlearn the love he owes to
me--his wretched mother! I cannot hear to think of it, I tell you. Let
us act; let us be doing something--something! How my brain whirls!
Think for me, Mary--pray for me, for Heaven is deaf, alas, to my poor
prayers!"
But even while she spoke, the gracious tears began to fill the furrows
in her cheeks, which until now had been dry throughout her talk; and
having told her friend, the weight about her heart was lifted off a
little, and the tightness round her brow was loosened by the blessed
hand of sympathy.
"I must write to him at once," said Mary thoughtfully. "How fortunate
that he did not leave Mirk until to-night. The two letters will now
reach him at the same time. He cannot write in answer to the one
which--which I wrote first--without having read the other; that will be
something saved."
My Lady shook her head.
"There is but little hope in that, I fear; for he himself has this night
told me--yes, I saw him face to face, Mary, only I was thickly veiled,
thank Heaven--he told me frankly (thinking I did not wish to lose my
waiting-maid) that he should lay it to my charge if your reply was 'No,'
and should not take it as the answer of your heart. How much more, if he
gets a refusal coming so quickly upon the very heels of this acceptance,
will he decline to believe it comes from your own self. More likely,
it would cause him, reckless as he is, to do something rash and
vengeful--perhaps to return hither on the instant, and---- O Mary,
Mary, I would give five thousand pounds this day, if that would stop his
coming to Mirk again!"
"Would that not stop him, mistress?" asked the waiting-maid with
earnest gravity. "Five thousand pounds is a fortune, is it not?"
"It would not stop him, Mary," rejoined my Lady sadly. "Ralph
Gavestone, even in his youth-time, never valued money a fillip when
weighed against a whim; and now his will is more a law to him than ever.
I have never known Resolve so fixed as I read it in his eyes this night.
And if he guessed the truth, Mary--oh, if he did but dream that I, his
lawful wife, for whom he had gladly laid his own life down, whose memory
he has kept fresh and green when all else has withered, whose loss has
been his ruin, was playing him false!--he said himself, that on his
reckless soul 'twas like as not there might be murder some day--and,
Mary, I do believe him."
White as the very moonbeams was my Lady's face, and the hand trembled
which held the handkerchief she passed across her damp white brow.
"Not for myself, good Mary, is this fear," gasped she, "but for my
dear ones--do you hear them yonder? is it not sad to listen to
such mirth?--for this unhappy man being wronged, becomes a madman
straightway. Not disgrace alone may fall upon us here, not only
shame--think of that, Mary; not only shame upon Sir Richard and the
rest! but even Crime may visit us. This house of dead Sir Robert--once
the home of peace, and genial ease, and hospitality----But that shall
never be; no, they shall never meet, my sons and he; I will die rather,
and my corpse would part them wide enough."
"O mistress, talk not so; you freeze my very blood. What was it we were
saying before you began to look like this?"
"You talked of bribing this Ralph Gavestone--for how could I offer him
gold save as a bribe! But if a bribe, what need was there to bribe
him? Why should I wish him once more upon the other side of the world?
Why pay him a younger brother's portion, to quit the courtship of my
waiting-maid? No, Mary, this man is no mre rogue, that he should take
his money without question, and be off; he is suspicious, keen--and ah,
if wronged, as implacable as Death itself."
"One moment, my Lady!" cried Mistress Forest leaping to her feet. "I do
believe I have a plan to get that letter back."
"Ah, good Heaven! What is it, wise, kind heart?"
"See, madam," and she began to reckon on her plump fingers, with
her pleasant face aglow with mingled joy and astonishment at her own
sagacity: "the note was put in late for the London post from Dalwynch;
it will therefore remain there, though it has left Mirk, all to-night,
and not be forwarded till the morning mail. If we drive over to-morrow
early--starting, say, at six o'clock--we shall be in plenty of time to
stop its going further. In the meantime, I will write another letter in
its place."
"You have saved me--for this time--I do believe, dear Mary; yes, we can
drive to Dalwynch--I will give orders for the carriage to be ready at
six--and still be back at the Abbey by breakfast-time. If we are pressed
for the reason, we can give the true one--to a certain point, if needs
must be--you had a mind to alter what you have written to your suitor."
CHAPTER III. CONTRARY TO THE REGULATIONS OF HER MAJESTY'S POST-OFFICE.
|SORELY did the fat coachman, who had no neck, inveigh against that
caprice of his mistress which compelled his appearance at the front door
upon the ensuing morning at an hour so altogether unexampled. If he had
but heard that it was all upon the account of Mistress Forest, and the
outlandish fellow who wore little gold rings in his ears, and that curly
heard, so like the door-mat of the servants-hall, it is doubtful whether
he would have obeyed such a premature behest at all; but as it was, he
was sitting on the coach-box with the sleek nags before him, at the foot
of the great steps which led down from the entrance-hall, at six o'clock
to a minute. It was broad daylight of course, so bright that it made him
wink again, as it flashed upon the glittering harness and the shining
skins of the pampered beasts; but still it was not a time for a man of
his years and girth to be hurried up and made to toil. "As late as you
please at night, my Lady, and nobody ever heard Joe Wiggins utter a
murmur," muttered he; "but there's no constitushun as can stand such
wear and tear as this."
However that might be with Mr Wiggins, Miss Rose Aynton seemed to make
uncommonly light of early rising, for, much to the astonishment of her
hostess, she was up and dressed and in the breakfast-room when that lady
made her appearance at half-past five.
"I happened to hear that you were going-out betimes, dear Lady Lisgard,"
said she with her sweetest smile; "and getting up in these first summer
mornings is such a treat to a poor London-bred girl like me; so,
without saying a word to dearest Letty, I thought I would just fill her
place for once, and make your coffee for you."
"Thank you, Rose," returned my Lady a little stiffly, for she had not
intended that anybody, and far less one who was not a member of her own
family, should have been a witness to her departure. "I have unpleasant
business on hand which takes me to Dalwynch before the morning train
starts."
"If you are going to London," began Rose hesitatingly, as if intending
to send something by my Lady's hands to her aunt, "if it was not
too much trouble"----"I am not going to London," replied Lady Lisgard
quietly. "I shall be back by the usual breakfast-hour, I have no doubt."
Here my Lady sipped her coffee with the air of a connoisseur, and
perceiving Miss Aynton was about to ask more questions, requested a
little sugar; then a fresh supply of--no, not hot milk--some cream.
Would the carriage never come round, and release her from this
importunate girl.
"How glad the people will be to see you about again once more, Lady
Lisgard," observed Miss Aynton cheerfully. "You can't imagine how
curious they have been to know why you have shut yourself up so long."
"I was not aware that my movements were any business of theirs, Rose,"
returned my Lady with severity, "nor, indeed, of anybody's except
myself."
"Very true," answered Miss Aynton carelessly; "that is what I always
told them. Besides, it is not pleasant to run the chance of meeting a
rude and perhaps half-drunken ruffian like this man Derrick, when
one knows he has made up his mind to address one upon the first
opportunity."
"Indeed!" said my Lady scornfully, "I assure you I was quite unaware of
that dreadful menace." She stole a glance over her cup, to see if there
was anything to read in this strange girl's face; but there was nothing.
As soon as she had finished her duties in connection with the coffeepot,
she had taken a piece of fancy-work in her hands, in the execution of
which she seemed entirely wrapped up.
"O yes; of course it is most ridiculous, but that is what all the
village has been saying for these five months, more or less; and now
that you are going out for the first time, when he has but left the
place overnight, they are sure to say"----
"How do you know, Rose, that this man left Mirk last night?" inquired my
Lady, setting down her cup, and looking at the young girl fixedly.
Could it possibly have been she whom she had beheld lurking about
the churchyard wall, and perhaps listening to the conversation, in the
course of which Derrick had announced his intention of going at that
late hour to Dalwynch, so as to be in time for the first up-train upon
the morrow?
A faint flush stole over Miss Aynton's face, but by no means such a
blush as is called "tell-tale:" it might easily enough have been caused
by the mre directness of the question. "Your son, Mr Walter, told me,"
replied she simply--"he is a great ally of this man's, you know.--Here
is the carriage. I am afraid you will find it very dull, Lady Lisgard,
taking this long drive all alone. If I thought that my company"----
"Thank you, Rose," replied my Lady hastily; "it is most kind of you to
offer it; but the fact is, I am going to take Forest with me. This visit
to Dalwynch is mainly upon her account indeed. If the chariot held more
than two, perhaps I should take you at your word; but as it is----See, I
have a book for my companion.--Come, Forest; we have no time to lose."
Mary had entered the room while she was speaking, and gave quite a start
at seeing Miss Aynton at the breakfast-table. Her mistress was already
cloaked, and had her bonnet on.
"To Dalwynch, my Lady?" said the footman, having put up the steps and
closed the chariot-door.
"Yes; drive fast."
"Which part of the town, my Lady?" for there were two roads to the
post-town, the relative length of which from the Abbey depended upon
what part of the place was to be visited.
Miss Aynton was standing on the last flight of the stone steps, and
could hear every word that was spoken.
"Take the lower road," replied my Lady very distinctly; and the
well-hung chariot--pleasantest invention save the fair-weather Hansom,
which the wit of coachmakers has yet sought out--rolled swiftly along
the gravelled road.
"Then they are not going to the railway station," exclaimed Rose aloud.
"No, miss," assented the butler, as he stood at the open hall-door,
regarding nature as though it were a novelty to him at that hour. "I
should say it must be the postoffice. Perhaps my Lady wishes to get the
letters this morning earlier than the Mirk's man can bring them."
"Very likely, Roberts," returned the young lady, a little disconcerted
at her involuntary remark having been overheard. "Let us hope she will
have good news. But I should scarcely have thought it was necessary to
have gone herself."
"Well, I am not so sure, miss. Mrs Rudd, the post-mistress at Dalwynch,
is a great stickler for forms and that, and she might have made some
difficulty, particularly as she did not obtain her place through our
influence."
"Whose influence, Roberts?"
"Ours, miss, to be sure. The Lisgard interest, you see, was given last
election to the losing side. Although time was, I can well recollect,
when poor Sir Robert had everything of that sort at his disposal that
was vacant in these parts; but them yallers, they have gone and spoilt
it all this time." And with a sigh of regret for the golden age of
patronage, and a shake of the head directed against the levelling
opinions at present in the ascendant, Mr Roberts went off to his
breakfast.
No sooner had the wheels of the chariot began to move, than Lady Lisgard
observed to her companion: "You have the letter with you that I dictated
last night, have you not?"
"Yes, my Lady; here it is, though not sealed down, in case you might
have thought of anything to add."
"No, Mary," said her mistress, perusing it; "there is nothing here that
I can better by thought, although I spent all night in thinking over it.
A refusal could scarce be made shorter or more decided than this; there
is not a trace of vacillation to give the most sanguine suitor hope."
Then, as if some other idea was expressing itself almost in spite of
herself, she added: "Do I not look deadly pale, Mary?"
"Very white and worn, madam, as you well may."
"But bad enough for people to observe who did not know the cause?"
"For some people, madam. She saw it sharp enough, if you mean her,
my Lady," and the waiting-maid made a significant gesture in the
direction of Miss Rose Aynton.
"Nothing escapes her, bless you--nothing; and the sooner she's out
of the house, under present circumstances--and indeed under every
circumstance, in my opinion--the better."
"You never liked her from the first, Mary," said her mistress in the
tone of one who argues against her own conviction. "We should not be
uncharitable in our judgments of others, and particularly as respects
young folks; we often set down as serious faults what in them is only
thoughtlessness."
"Miss Aynton is none of that sort, my Lady; she always thinks before
she speaks, and takes a good long look before she leaps; and for all
she seems as though butter would not melt in her mouth, she's as full
o' schemes as a cat at a dairy-door. If there's cream to be got in this
world, she'll get it, my Lady, I'll go bail, let the butter-milk fall to
whose share it will."
"I confess that I can't quite understand her," said my Lady musing. "I
am sure, when she first came, she seemed simple and unobtrusive enough;
while, on the other hand, in her manner towards me of late"----
"Downright impudence, I call it, my Lady, in such a chit as she."
"Well, I don't say that; but she is certainly not so respectful as she
might be. I shall be sorry to send her back to London just as the summer
is beginning, to live with her cross old aunt, whom she appears to
dislike so; but I confess I think she has been here long enough."
"Much too long, my Lady, much too long," answered Mrs Forest gravely;
"she has set more people in the house by the ears than you wot of. While
Anne Rees, who used to be Miss Letty's maid, one would think Miss Aynton
was her mistress now, so entirely has she got her under her thumb. She
has ferreted out some folly of Anne's--Heaven knows how she did it, or
what it is; but the girl's her slave. From whom but her did she learn
that you were starting at this hour? And, again, why was not Miss Letty
told as well as Miss Rose? Do you suppose she would have let anybody
else make coffee for her mamma, if she had been aware of your departure?
No, no. Then Miss Aynton will take credit to herself for not permitting
Miss Letty to be called, and fatigue herself by getting up so early.
Nasty, sly young hussy! That's just her way; uncommon civil, kind, and
attentive until she gets the upper hand, and finds you under her thumb;
then you begin to know her. We've found her out in the servants-hall,
although she makes a fool of old Roberts yet. She actually told him,
that at the last dinner-party at the Abbey she thought him the most
distinguished-looking person in the room; but only wait till she catches
him some afternoon at the Madeira! then he'll be her obedient, humble
servant, without having any more pretty speeches. That's a bad, bold
girl, ma'am, let her be ten times a lady born."
Here Mistress Forest, indignantly tossing her head back, without making
due allowance for her bonnet, came into sharp contact with the back of
the chariot, and severely bit her tongue. My Lady was thereby enabled to
interpose a remark.
"But why have you not told me a word of this before, Mary? I would never
have permitted a guest of mine, and particularly a young lady to whom I
stand in the relation of guardian while she is under my roof, first to
ingratiate herself with my servants, and then to tyrannise over them in
the way you describe. I never heard of anything more atrociously
mean, and I think you have been wanting in your duty--let alone your
personal regard for me, Mary--to have concealed the matter so long."
"Begging your pardon, my Lady, you have nobody to blame but yourself for
that," observed the waiting-maid with asperity. "The only harsh words
you ever spoke to me were about certain of Mrs Welsh's doings, of which
I complained with reason, though I do not wish to refer to them now.
What you said was this: 'Never abuse the affectionate relation in
which we two stand, Mary, by causing me to side with you against
your fellow-servants. I can deny you nothing, but do not vex me with
talebearing. I hate all vulgar gossip, and despise those who bring it.'
After a setting-down like that, it was not likely that I should give
tongue about Miss Aynton's ways, nor let you know how she has made Anne
Rees a spy upon us all. No, no; mind your own business, Mary Forest,
says you; and I've minded it, my Lady, ever since."
"Do not be angry with me, friend," returned Lady Lisgard sadly; "I
daresay I was wrong; and even if not, I have no heart to argue with you
now."
"And no wonder, poor dear," assented the waiting-maid, greatly
mollified. "I was a brute to bring it up against you just now in all
this trouble; nor was it the right time, perhaps, to speak about Miss
Aynton's goings on. Only you yourself said her manner was not quite what
it used to be, and I was so afraid that she might be getting you, my
Lady, under her thumb."
"How could that possibly be, Mary? She surely cannot have the slightest
suspicion of"--
"She sniffs something, my Lady, or she would not have been making your
coffee this morning. However, let her sniff, only be you very careful to
lock your desk; and when you want to say anything to me about you know
who, come out of earshot of the keyhole of your own door.--Ah, wouldn't
she, though? But I know better. A thief? No, I didn't say a thief,
although, for the matter of that, she has a mind to steal from you, or
I am much mistaken, something you value most on earth--your son. There
now, I've said it."
And the waiting-maid drew a very long breath, as though some oppressive
weight was off her mind at last. She evidently expected her mistress
to express astonishment, if not horror; and it was positively a
disappointment to her when my Lady replied calmly: "I know all about
that, Mary; but you are doing Miss Aynton wrong. She might have been
my daughter-in-law if she liked, and yet, to my certain knowledge, she
refused to be so."
"She refused?"
"Most certainly she did. My son made her an offer in my presence, and
she rejected him.--But here we are at Dalwynch. Tell Wiggins to stop at
the post-office. Thank Heaven, there is plenty of time to spare. How my
heart does beat!"
The waiting-maid pulled the check-string, and delivered her mistress's
orders, but quite mechanically, without knowing what she said. In spite
of the importance of what she had now so immediately to do, her mind was
entirely occupied with the wonder of what she had just heard, and she
kept repeating to herself: "And she rejected him? and she rejected him?"
while her heightened eyebrows almost amalgamated with her hair.
Perhaps some of this excessive astonishment was due to poor Mistress
Forest's peculiar position; she thought it so strange that one of her
own sex should reject any man--who was not already married to somebody
else.
"Here is the post-office, Mary. Mind you speak very civilly to the
woman, and make haste; I shall be in a perfect fever till I see you come
back with that dreadful letter safe in your hand."
One minute, two minutes, three minutes--each seeming an hour to my Lady,
shrinking in a corner of the chariot, while the omnibus to the station
passed and repassed, picking up she knew not what passengers, and
bearing Derrick himself, for all she knew, within it. At last Lady
Lisgard could endure the suspense no longer. "John," said she to the
footman standing beside the door, "what is Forest about? Why does she
not return?"
"She is talking to Mrs Rudd, my Lady. I think there is some dispute
about a letter; for they are both in the post-office department."
"Let me out, John," exclaimed my Lady impatiently; and the next instant
she had entered Mrs Rudd's establishment. This was, for the most part, a
grocer's shop; one-fifth of it only being reserved for the reception and
despatch of Her Majesty's mails. There were no customers at that still
early hour; a young man who was sanding the floor with some ostentation,
as though to imply that all the sand went that way, and none into the
sugar, made a respectable pause as my Lady's silk swept by; and another,
who appeared to be washing his hands in tea, assumed that sickly smile
which is supposed by persons of his class to conciliate people of
quality; but Mrs Rudd herself, intrenched behind her little post-office
palisade, gave no sign of gracious welcome, and from out the pigeon-hole
through which she distributed her stamps, her words poured forth in an
undiminished stream of denial and severity; nay, I doubt whether the
presence of my Lady did not intensify the bitterness of its tone.
"Whatever importance it may be to you to get this letter, Mistress
Forest," cried she, addressing poor Mary, who was looking very
disconsolate, and not a little angry also, "it is of much greater moment
to me that I should keep it. It is as much as my place is worth to give
a letter back which has once been given into my charge; and I am not
aware that I owe that place to my Lady Lisgard, and therefore feel
called upon to risk----I beg pardon, your Ladyship--but I did not
catch sight of you before. What your servant has come to ask of me
is something out of the question. I will post this second letter for
her--although it is two minutes past the time, even with an extra stamp,
for that--but as for returning her this other: yes, I have no doubt
it's hers--although, for that matter, people's handwriting is often
very like other people's--but directly it reached this box it became the
property of the Postmaster-general. It is no more hers now than it is
mine; and if I was to yield it up, it's a matter, madam, that might be
brought before the assizes."
"Mrs Rudd," said my Lady quietly, "I hope, although your late husband
and my son were not quite of the same way of thinking as to politics,
that you do not look upon me in an unneighbourly light. I do not wish to
insult you by offering you a bribe; but I may say this much, that
nobody ever put me under an obligation yet, without my endeavouring to
recompense them to the best of my power."
"Yes, my Lady--although I can't say as I have ever been overburdened
with favours at your Ladyship's hands--I know what sugar and currants
goes to the Abbey from Simmons' every week--enough for a regiment, I'm
sure, and at such a price, too, and all because he voted blue"----
"Voting blue, Mrs Rudd," interrupted my Lady, "is nothing at all
compared with the good service you would do me, if you could only oblige
my maid in the matter of this letter. Her future happiness, I may say,
is bound up in the mre fact of that little note arriving or not at its
destination."
"Mr R. Derrick, Turf Hotel, Piccadilly," muttered Mrs Rudd, looking at
the address over the top of her silver spectacles. "I should like to
have half the Abbey grocery custom very much, of course."
"You shall have it," whispered my Lady in broken tones.
"But I dare not do it," continued the post-mistress. "This might be held
over me--if it ever came to be known--so that I should never be my own
mistress again, which, now that Rudd is gone, I mean to be. When you
have once done an illegal action, my Lady, you may just as well be a
slave--until you have taken your punishment. Somebody is sure to get
wind of it, and to put you under their thumb."
My Lady gave a ghastly smile, for speech was not in her.
"Look here, Mrs Rudd," interposed Mistress Forest softly, "you are not
asked either to destroy or to give up this letter--of the inside of
which, if you please, I will tell you every word. It is written to
my lover--that's the fact; and I am very, very anxious that he should
receive it"--here she trod upon my Lady's foot with unmistakable
emphasis--"should receive it by this night's post."
"Well, so he will," returned the postmistress, "in Piccadilly."
"Yes, but Mr Derrick is not in Piccadilly," urged the waiting-maid.
"The direction should he 'Care of Mr Arthur Haldane'--what court is
it, my Lady?--Yes; Pump Court, Temple. If you would only let me write
that, Mrs Rudd, upon the envelope, instead of the present address, all
mischief will be avoided. Would it not, my Lady?"
"There seems no great harm in that," said Mrs Rudd reflectively.
"No harm whatever, and a great deal of good to you," murmured the
waiting-maid, as with a rapid hand she crossed out the words already
written, and substituted for them the address of Mr Haldane's
law-chambers. "Thank you kindly. Now, please to stamp this other. I am
so much obliged."
"And I too," said my Lady graciously. "Be so kind, Mrs Rudd, as to let
me take your list of groceries with me. What nice macaroni that looks--I
find such a difficulty in getting it in the country pure."
Mrs Rudd herself accompanied my Lady to her chariot, and courtesied to
the ground as the chariot whirled away.
No sooner were they alone, than mistress and maid exchanged a hearty
kiss. "Thank you, thank you, dear Mary," cried the former; "without
your presence of mind, what should we have done! I began to feel quite
prostrate with despair, and even now I tremble to think how nearly we
had failed. I could not go through such a scene again, I believe, even
if my life depended upon it."
"Ah, yes, you could, my Lady; and I only trust it may not be necessary
for you to do so. There is nothing more, however, to be done at present,
save to wait and hope--except the telegraph message. I ventured to tell
John, 'To the Railway Station.'"
"Telegraph to whom, and about what, Mary?"
"We must let Mr Arthur know what he is to do with that letter, my Lady;
otherwise, he may endeavour to forward it to the person to whom it is
addressed."
"Very true, dear Mary. I do believe that my wits are leaving me. By all
means telegraph 'Burn it.' I wish I could repay you for your prudent
thought, as easily as I can recompense Mrs Rudd for her complaisance."
"Do not think of repaying me, my dear," replied the waiting-maid fondly.
"It is a heartfelt pleasure to find that I am not altogether useless in
this strait. I am yours--yours--yours--my beloved mistress, and will
be though every friend on earth should stand afar off, and you were
forsaken by your very kith and kin."
"But God forbid that should ever be the case, Mary!" ejaculated Lady
Lisgard solemnly.
"Amen, my Lady--amen, I'm sure; but when the worst happens that can
happen, you will please to remember you have Mary Forest still!"
CHAPTER IV. AN UNCHEERFUL PICNIC.
|BY the time Lady Lisgard returned to the Abbey, notwithstanding that
the sleek bays had devoured the road with all the haste of which their
condition permitted, it was long past the breakfast-hour, and her
absence from that meal provoked no little comment from the members of
her family. Nobody was able to allay their curiosity as to what could
have taken mamma to Dalwynch, but Miss Aynton did her best to stimulate
it.
"She has gone upon Mary Forest's account," said she--"that is all I can
tell you. I never knew any one take such trouble about her maids as dear
Lady Lisgard."
"Yes, Rose," replied Letty warmly; "but it is not every maid who has
lived with her mistress thirty years. I believe Mary would lay down her
very life for dear mamma, and indeed for any of us. Whenever I read
those stupid letters in the papers about there being no good old
servants to be seen now a days, I long to send the editor a list of
our people at the Abbey. Mary, indeed, is quite a new acquisition
in comparison with Wiggins and the gardener; but then she is almost
faultless. I have heard mamma say that there has never been a word
between them."
"Not between them, indeed, Letty," returned Miss Aynton laughing; "for
Mistress Forest has all the talk to herself."
Sir Richard smiled grimly, for Mary had been in his bad books ever since
her attachment to "that vagabond Derrick."
"Good, Miss Rose!" cried Walter--"very good. I wish I could say as much
for this so-called new-laid egg. Why should eggs be of different
degrees of freshness? Why not all fresh? Why are they ever permitted to
accumulate?"
"My egg is very good," observed Sir Richard sententiously; "how is
yours, Miss Aynton?" and he laid an emphasis upon the name, in tacit
reproof to his brother for having been so familiar as to say "Miss
Rose."
"Well, Sir Richard, I am London-bred, you know, and therefore your
country eggs, by comparison, are excellent."
"I wish I could think," said the baronet with stateliness, "that in
other matters we equally gained by contrast with Town, in your opinion."
"I believe London is the place to get everything good," remarked Walter
sharply.
"We are going to-day, Miss Aynton," continued the baronet, without
noticing the interruption, "to offer you something which really
cannot be got in town, and which hitherto the state of the weather has
forbidden even here"----
"Ah, for shame, Richard!" interrupted Letty, holding up her hands. "Now,
that was to be a surprise for Rose.--It's a picnic, my dear. I daresay
now you scarcely know what that is."
"I can tell you, then," ejaculated Walter with acidity: "it's packing
up all the things you would have in the ordinary course at luncheon in
a comfortable manner--except the bread, or something equally necessary,
which is always left behind--and carrying them about six miles to the
top of an unprotected hill--in this particular case, to a tower without
a roof to it--there to be eaten without tables or chairs, and in
positions the most likely to produce indigestion that the human body can
adapt itself to."
"I have always been told that being in a bad humour is the most certain
thing to cause what you eat to disagree with you," observed Letty
demurely.--"Never mind what Walter says. I am sure you will be
delighted, dear Rose; we are going to Belcomb, a sort of shooting-box
belonging to us, about five miles away, and built by grandpapa."
"Commonly termed 'Lisgard's Folly,'" added Master Walter.
"Not by his descendants, however, I should hope, with one exception,"
observed Sir Richard haughtily.--"I will thank you, Walter, not to cut
my newspaper."
Master Walter had seized the paper-knife as though it had been a more
deadly weapon, and was engaged in disembowelling one of a multiplicity
of newspapers which had just arrived by post.
"I did not see it was yours," returned he. "Goodness knows, nobody wants
to read the Court Journal but yourself. The idea of not liking one's
newspaper cut!"
"Yes, I must say, my dear Richard," said Letty, playfully patting her
elder brother, next to whom she sat, upon the shoulder, "that is a most
singular objection of yours, I think it certainly proves that you will
always remain an old bachelor."
Sir Richard maintained a frowning silence. Master Walter twirled his
silken moustache, and looked up at Miss Aynton with a meaning smile.
"What is your opinion upon the subject," said he, "Miss Rose?"
"Insolent!" exclaimed Sir Richard, rising so hastily that he knocked
over the chair on which he had been sitting. "How dare you ask such
questions in my presence?"
"Richard, Richard!" cried a reproving voice; and lo! at the open door
stood my Lady, hollow-eyed and pale, and with such a weariness and
melancholy in her tones as would have touched most hearts.--"Am I ever
to find you and Walter quarrelling thus?--Yes, I have heard all, and
think you both to blame; but nothing can excuse this violence. If I have
any authority in this house at all, not another word, I beg."
Sir Richard bit his lip, but resumed his seat; Walter went on quietly
dissecting the Illustrated London News, with an air of intense
interest; Miss Aynton very accurately traced the pattern of her plate
with her fork; Letty, the innocent cause of the outbreak, shed silent
tears. Altogether, the family picture was gloomy, and the situation
embarrassing. My Lady reaped this advantage, however, that nobody asked
her a word about her expedition to Dalwynch.
"Do not let me detain you at table, my dear Letty," said she, breaking
a solemn pause. "Miss Aynton was so good as to make my coffee this
morning, and therefore it is only fair that she should perform the same
kind office now."
Glad enough of this excuse to leave the room--a movement felt by all to
be very difficult of imitation--Letty rushed up stairs to indulge in a
good cry in her own bedroom, "the upper system of fountains" only having
been yet in play. Sir Richard gloomily stalked away towards the stables;
Walter lounged into the hall, lit a cigar, and paced to and fro upon the
terrace beneath the windows of the breakfast-room, with both his hands
in his pockets. Whiffs of his Havana, and scraps of the opera tune which
he was humming, came in at the open window, to those who yet remained.
My Lady had much too good taste to dislike the smell of good tobacco,
and the air which he had chosen was a favourite one with her; perhaps
Master Walter hummed it upon that account. He was to leave the Abbey
next day to join his regiment--although not immediately. It was only
natural he should wish to spend a few days in London after he had had so
much of the quiet of Mirk, and yet my Lady grudged them. How pleasant
everything about him was; how dull the Abbey would be without him; what
a sad pity it was that he and Sir Richard got on so ill. If she were
to die, would they not turn their hacks on one another for ever, and he
brothers no more; and if something worse than Death were to happen to
her----No, she would not think of that. Had not all that could be done
to avert such utter ruin been done that very morning? There was surely
no immediate peril now--no necessity for such excessive caution and
self-restraint as she had been obliged of late months to exercise; it
was something to have breathing-space and liberty.
"I hope you are coming with us to the picnic, Lady Lisgard, now that
that horrid man has gone?" said a cold quiet voice.
My Lady, looking out of window at her favourite son, and lost in gloomy
depths of thought, had entirely forgotten that she had invited Miss
Rose Aynton to bear her company. She did not venture to look upon her
questioner's face, though she felt that it was fixed on hers, reading
Heaven knew what. How had she dared to think of liberty with this
domestic spy under her very roof! What should she answer to this
dreadful question? Something this girl must know, or must suspect, or
she would never have ventured thus to allude a second time to the man
Derrick, after her rebuff in the morning. Above all things, she would
follow Mistress Forest's advice, and get Miss Aynton out of Mirk Abbey.
She had intended to speak to her respecting what had just occurred
at the breakfast-table; that would also offer an opportunity to say
something more.
"Yes, Rose, I am going with you to Belcomb. It is a very favourite spot
of mine--very. It was about that expedition, partly, that I wished
to speak with you. I was about to ask you to be very careful in your
conduct towards my sons this day. It is the last time they will be
together for weeks, perhaps. Be kind to my poor Richard. Of course,
Walter knew nothing of what has passed between you and his brother; but
the bow which he drew at a venture sent home a barbed shot."
Miss Aynton bowed her head.
"You were sorry for that, Rose, I know. You cannot fail to see how
irritable he has lately grown, poor fellow. The fact is, he has
overestimated the strength of his own powers of self-constraint. Your
presence is a perpetual trial to him." My Lady paused, anticipating some
reply to a hint so palpable; but Miss Aynton, who carried her fancy-work
in her pocket, continued to develop a pansy in floss silk; and the
flower opened in silence.
"Under these circumstances, dear Rose," pursued my Lady, "do you not
think it would be better--I know how embarrassing it would be to you to
propose it, and therefore, although your hostess, I relieve you of the
task--do you not think it would, on the whole, be wiser for you to leave
us a little sooner than you had intended?"
The humming of the opera tune, and the odour of the Havana, were growing
more distinct, and the elastic footfall on the gravel was coming very
near.
"If I consulted my own feelings," returned Miss Aynton, in firm, clear
tones, "I should certainly have left Mirk before this, Lady Lisgard."
"Hush, Miss Aynton, for Heaven's sake!" cried my Lady, "the window is
open."
"But unless Sir Richard himself," pursued the girl in more subdued
accents, "releases me from my promise to remain until after his
birthday, I must, with your permission, madam, do so; otherwise, he
might possibly imagine that his presence is too great a trial
for me, and I should be loath indeed to have my departure so
misconstrued." There was bitterness in the tone with which she spoke,
but determination too.
"I am to understand, then," returned my Lady flushing, "that contrary to
my advice and wish"----
"Mother, dear, here comes the Break," cried Master Walter, from the
terrace beneath, in his ringing cheerful tones. "I hope you have told
Roberts about the prog."
"Yes, dear, yes," answered my Lady, lovingly even in her haste; then
turning to the young girl, she whispered almost fiercely: "At least,
Miss Aynton, you will shape your behaviour this afternoon as I
requested. There is no time now to discuss the other matter."
And indeed the butler entered the next moment with: "The Break is at the
door, my Lady."
Now, the Break was a very roomy vehicle, with accommodation within it
for three times the party who were now about to occupy it, beside two
seats at the back, like flying buttresses, for footmen. Yet Sir Richard
chose to sit upon the box beside the driver, a place only selected
(unless for smoking purposes) by persons with "horsey" characteristics,
who prefer coachman's talk to that of their equals, and among whom the
baronet could not be justly classed; but the fact was, the young man was
in an evil temper, and desired no companionship but his own. He would
have seen the whole expedition at the bottom of the sea--a metaphor open
to the gravest objections, but which he used while arguing the
matter with himself aloud--if it were not that that fellow Walter was
going--and--and--he was not going to let him have all the talk to
himself, that was all. True, Sir Richard had given up the idea of
transforming Miss Aynton into Lady Lisgard; but still it was not
pleasant to see another man making himself exclusively agreeable to
her. He was annoyed with himself at having exhibited such passion at
the breakfast-table, for the more he thought of it, the more he felt
convinced that Walter's remark, although doubtless intended to be
offensive, had not been made with any knowledge of his own rejected
suit. Still, he was in a very bad temper,-and listened to the
conversation going on behind his back with a moody brow, and every now
and then a parting of the lips, through which escaped something the
reverse of a prayer.
It was Walter, of course, who was talking.
"Inhabited!" said he in answer to some question of Miss Aynton's; "O
dear, no. Belcomb never had a tenant but once, and I should think would
never have another. One Sir Heron Grant and his brother took it two
years for the shooting-season: a brace of Scotchmen whose ancestors
dated from the Deluge, but so dreary a couple, that one wished that the
family had started from a still earlier epoch, and been all washed
away."
"I thought Richard rather liked Sir Heron," observed Letty simply.
"Yes, because he was a baronet; and birds of the same gorgeous plumage
flock together, you know. There was nothing remarkable about him but his
feathers, and he scarcely ever opened his mouth except to put food in
it. It is said that in the old stage-coach times, he and his brother
travelled from Edinburgh to London, and only uttered one sentence
apiece. At York, the younger brother saw a rat come out of a wheat-rick.
'By Jove,' cried he, 'there's a rat!' The next morning, and after an
interval of about eighty miles, Sir Heron replied: 'Ay, if Towser had
seen that rat, he would have made short work of him.'"
"Well, it appears, they agreed, at all events," returned Rose coldly.
"After all, even a foolish remark is better than an ill-natured one."
"The scenery is getting well worth your attention here," observed Sir
Richard, turning graciously round towards Miss Aynton. "Belcomb is a
complete solitude, but for those who are contented with the pleasures of
the country, it is a pleasant spot enough."
"Can we see the house from here, Sir Richard?"
"No, not until we reach this Windmill, on the top of the hill. The
private road branches out from the highway at that spot; and the mill
is the nearest inhabited house to Belcomb.--By the by, mother, Hathaway
must be spoken to about those sails of his--there, you saw how even old
Jenny started at them--it is positively dangerous for horses to pass
by. He must build up that old wall a foot higher, and put a gate up.
Any stray cattle might wander in and get knocked down--the sails are so
close to the ground."
Master Walter had not at all relished Miss Aynton's rejoinder to
his story; still less had he liked his brother's striking into the
conversation; least of all did he approve of this landlord talk about
repairs and alterations, which reminded him of his being a younger son,
and having neither part nor lot in the great Lisgard heritage.
"There's the Folly," cried he suddenly, with a view of changing the
subject; "upon that cliff-like hill yonder, above that belt of trees."
"What, that beautiful ivied tower!" exclaimed Rose.
"Yes; without a roof to it."
"Well, at all events, it's very pretty," said Miss Aynton reprovingly.
"I am sure, Mr Walter, you ought to be grateful to your grandpapa for
building so picturesque an edifice."
"He might have made a road, however, to it," observed Walter
satirically; "a road and a roof, I do consider to be indispensable."
"There's a beautiful winding path through the wood, Rose," said Letty,
"fifty times better than any road; and is not the piece of water
charming? It is the only one with any pretension to be called a Lake in
all the county."
Certainly Belcomb deserved praise. A small but comfortably furnished
house, embosomed in trees, through which were the pleasantest peeps of
hill and dale, and spread before it quite a crystal tarn, with rocky
islands so picturesquely grouped that they almost gave the notion of
being artificial. It was as though a segment of the Lake-country had
been cut off, and inserted into the very midst of Wheatshire.
It was as lonely, too, to all appearance, as any Cumberland mre. An
old man and his wife, who were in charge of the place, came hirpling
out with respectful welcomes, and the latter was about to remove the
shutters of the drawing-room, when my Lady interposed.
"No, Rachel; we will not trouble you to do that. We are going to picnic
at the Tower. You seem quite surprised to see us so early. I suppose
nobody has been here yet upon the same errand."
"Well, no, ma'am; nor is it likely, after your orders"----
"Oh, the fact is, mother," interrupted Sir Richard with a little
stammer, "I forgot to tell you about it; but Rinkel informs me there has
been considerable damage done by parties coming here from Dalwynch and
other places, and therefore he has put up a Notice to prohibit the whole
thing in future."
And, indeed, upon the path leading to "the Folly," which could be
approached by another way than that in front of the house, they
presently came upon a board recently erected, which threatened
Trespassers with all the rigour of the law.
There was a bitter sneer upon Captain Lisgard's handsome face, at this
assumption of authority upon the part of his brother, and it did
not soften when my Lady thoughtfully remarked: "Ah, well; that will
certainly make the place very private."
A curious reply, as Letty thought, at the time, for her mother to make,
who was always so eager to oblige her neighbours, and who well knew how
popular Lisgard's Folly was with the humbler class of townsfolk in the
summer months. But she was destined to be vastly more astonished before
that day was spent.
The little party, so strangely out of accord with one another, took
their lunch, indeed, beneath the shadow of the Tower; but all those
harmonious elements which are so absolutely essential to the success
of a picnic were wanting. There were no high spirits, no good-humoured
badinage, and not the ghost of a laugh. My Lady, singularly silent even
for her, gazed around her on the familiar landscape, or regarded the
shuttered cottage with a mournful interest, as though they reminded her
of happier times. Miss Aynton, careful of what my Lady had enjoined, was
studiously urbane to Sir Richard, but without obtaining the wished-for
result; for while the baronet was thereby only rendered tolerably
gracious, the captain grew intensely irritated. Poor Letty, who was the
only one prepared to be agreeable, or had any expectation of enjoying
herself, felt immensely relieved when the repast was concluded, and the
horses were ordered to be "put to." As for strolling about the grounds,
and pointing out their varied beauties to Rose, as she had counted
upon doing, that was no longer to be thought of. Sir Richard, as usual,
offered his arm in stately fashion to his mother; but Master Walter,
lighting a cigar, stood for a few minutes looking down with knitted brow
upon the lake, then sauntered after them, without saying a word, and
with both hands in his pockets.
"Dear Rose," cried Letty, who watched these proceedings with little
short of terror, "what have you said to make Walter so cross? I never
saw him behave like that in my life. He did not even look at you. Would
it be very wrong if you just ran after him, and said a word or two
before we got into the carriage? I am so dreadfully afraid of a quarrel
between him and Richard."
"Just as you please, Letty," returned Miss Aynton, looking pale, and a
little frightened too; and forcing a laugh, she tripped down the zigzag
path in pursuit of the exasperated captain.
Letty waited a reasonable time, watching the footman collect the dbris
of the entertainment, and pack the plate, and then, supposing their
difficulty had been adjusted, followed upon the track of her friend and
Walter. The path was not only of considerable length, but so very steep,
that one little zigzag overhung another; thus, as she descended, she
perceived through the thin Spring foliage the two young people standing
beneath her, although they were quite unconscious of her approach. She
caught the last words of something Rose was saying; those were: "Walter,
dear." She marked the girl stretch her arms towards him, as though
she would have clasped them round his neck; and then she saw Captain
Lisgard, of her Majesty's Light Dragoons, put her roughly by, shake
himself free of her with a movement expressive almost of loathing, and
turn upon his heels with an oath.
CHAPTER V. THE FINESSE IN TRUMPS.
|IT is the Night before the Derby. The West End is thronged with men.
The streets are perceptibly more thronged with well-dressed males
than at any other time in the year. The May meetings brought enough of
parsons and sober-coated laity to dull the living tide--to almost make
us Londoners a mournful people (which we are, naturally, not, despite
what Frenchmen say); but those grave ones have either departed from us,
or are now lost and undistinguishable in this influx of gay company. All
the newcomers are in their most gorgeous raiment, for is not this the
great "gaudy" week of the Wicked? Half the officers of cavalry in her
Majesty's sendee have obtained leave of absence for eight-and-forty
hours upon urgent private affairs; and a fourth of the infantry have
done the like; they have come up from every station within the four seas
to see the great race run, which is to put in their pockets from five
pounds to fifty thousand. Over their little books they shake their
shining heads, and stroke their tawny moustaches in a deprecating
manner, but each one has a secret expectation that "he shall pull it
off this once;" for, upon the whole, our military friends have not been
fortunate in turf transactions. There is a fair sprinkling, too, of
respectable country gentlemen, who rarely leave their families to occupy
their old-bachelor quarters at Long's or the Tavistock, except
on this supreme occasion. Every fast university-man who can obtain
an exeat upon any pretence whatever--from sudden mortality in the
domestic circle down to being subpoenaed by a friendly attorney in
the supposititious case of Hookey (a blind man) v. Walker--is up in town
resplendent, confident, Young. Every sporting farmer, save those in the
north, who have a private saturnalia of their own in the mid-autumn, has
left his farm for two nights and a day, and is seeing life in London.
Besides these, an innumerable host of well-dressed scoundrels--for whom
the word "Welcher" is altogether too commendable--have come up from
country quarters, where they have been playing various "little games,"
all more or less discreditable, to work together for evil with their
metropolitan confreres for four days.
Every haunt of dissipation is holding highest holiday. The stupid,
obscene Cider Cellars find, for one night at least, that they have
attractions still; the music-halls are tropical with heat and rankest
human vegetation; Cremorne, after the crowded theatres have disgorged
their steaming crowds, is like a fair. The strangers' room at all the
clubs has been bespoken this night for weeks. In the card-rooms, the
smoking-rooms, the billiard-rooms, there is scarcely space to move, far
less to breathe in; yet there is everywhere a babblement of tongues, and
the words that are most bandied about from feverish mouth to mouth,
are first, The King, and secondly, Menelaus. The tout had kept his
word--either from fear or nicest honour--until the stipulated week had
elapsed, and then the news of the trial-race began to circulate: from
his outsiders' place, to that of fourth favourite, then of third, and at
last to that of second had "the French horse" gradually risen. A
curious and illogical position enough--but then the turf-people are
illogical--for if the news that he had beaten The King was true, he
ought to have been first favourite; and if the news was not true, he
had no reason to find favour at all. As it was, however, The King had
come down half a point as if to meet him, to 9 to 2; while Menelaus
stood at 5 to 1.
And had that trial-race really taken place or not? and if so, Was it on
the Square? was the question which was just then agitating the Houses of
Lords and Commons (nay, it was whispered, Marlborough House itself),
and all the mess-tables in her Majesty's service, more than any
other subject in this world. There was also a vague rumour that the
favourite's "understandings" were not as they should be; that there was
a contraction that might be fatal to his prospects; that the idol's feet
were of clay.
Ralph Derrick had "put the pot on" his Many Laws, and would be a
millionaire if he won; but Walter Lisgard had put more than the pot.
If the French colours did not shew in front at the winning-post, the
captain, still to use the elegant metaphor of the sporting fraternity,
would be in Queer Street. So infatuated had the young man grown, that
he had absolutely hedged even that one bet which insured him a thousand
pounds in case The King should win the race. Notwithstanding his
coyness in accepting the first offer of a loan from his uncultivated
friend, he had borrowed of him twice since, in each case giving
his I.O.U., whereby he endeavoured to persuade himself that he was
liquidating all obligation; yet, unless he considered his mre autograph
was worth the sums for which it was pledged, I know not how he succeeded
in this. For if Menelaus did not happen to win, he not only would not
have enough to discharge his debts of honour for nearly two years--when
he would come into possession of his patrimony of five thousand
pounds--but even a great portion of that would be bespoken. Thus, of
course, he had placed himself, through mre greed, in a most unpleasant
position; but at the same time it must be allowed that he had yielded
to a great temptation, such as would probably have made the mouth of any
financier water, had the opportunity offered in his particular line; for
with the exception of mre outsiders, The King had beaten every horse
that was to contend with him on the morrow; and Menelaus, to Walter's
certain knowledge, had beaten The King.
Equinely speaking, then, it was a certainty that the French horse should
win the Derby, in which case the young man's gains would be prodigious;
for not only had he taken advantage of the original position of the
animal in the betting, but as the odds grew less and less, had still
backed him, until his possible winnings reached, on paper, to five
figures; on the other hand, by this last piece of imprudence, his
possible----But no, it was not possible. "Things surely wouldn't go so
devilish cross with a fellow as that or to put the captain's thought
in other words, the Government of the Universe being founded upon just
principles, would never permit such a stupendous misfortune to overwhelm
him; or, it might be, the gallant captain believed that Fortune was
indeed a female, and would therefore hesitate to inflict calamity upon
so pretty a fellow as himself. At the same time, the event of the morrow
was so big with fate, that it was not pleasant to dwell upon it; and
anything which could have prevented his mind from recurring to the same,
would have been welcomed gladly. But there was but one thing that had
the power to do this. His anxiety was far too deep to be flattered away
by the smile of Beauty, or lost in the sparkle of Wine. The homoeopathic
treatment, similia similibus, he felt was the only one that could now
give him relief, and he therefore sought for rest from the cares of the
racecourse in the excitement of the gaming-table. Do not, however,
let it be supposed that the captain sought out any of those convenient
establishments for the immediate transfer of property, which are guarded
by iron doors, and always liable to the incursions of the police, who,
upon breaking in, discover four-and-twenty gentlemen (one of whom has
swallowed the dice), sitting round a green baize table in conversation
about Music and the Fine Arts. Master Walter was rash in his
speculations, but he was not madman enough to play chicken-hazard
against foxes.
"I think I shall try my luck with the Landrails to-night," observed
he to his companion Derrick, stopping short in flaring Piccadilly, and
biting-his nails. The two men had been occupying lodgings in the same
house, the Turf Hotel being full; the younger finding a species of
comfort in the society of the part-owner of Menelaus, who was even
more confident of the success of that noble quadruped than himself.
"By all means, my lad," returned the gold-finder simply, "although I
don't know what they are; and so as you take me with you, I don't care."
Three weeks ago, such a proposition would have, staggered the captain,
or rather, he would have rejected it point-blank. To be seen in public
with his uncouth and flashily-attired friend, was at that time a
considerable trial to the fastidious light dragoon; but the immense
interest which they had in common, had rendered the familiarity of the
once odious Orson at first tolerable, and eventually welcome, and even
necessary. He had taken him with him into quite exclusive circles, and,
except on one occasion at the Rag, where Derrick, having drunk more
champagne than was good for him, had offered to fight Major Pompus of
the Fusiliers for what he liked, nothing unpleasant had taken place
in consequence. Men observed: "What a deuced rum fellow Lisgard brought
with him the other night;" but the said stranger had lost his money very
good-naturedly at the whist-table, and it was understood that he had
more to lose.
Under such circumstances, the gentlemen-players were very charitable. Mr
Ralph Derrick did not play a first-rate game at whist; very few persons
who have not been brought up in good society do; but his performance
was not so inferior as to make success impossible for a night or two,
however certain the ruin that would have overtaken him in the long-run.
Moreover, he was never "put off his head" by the largeness of the stake,
his habitual lavishness in money-matters rendering him indifferent to
that matter. Captain Lisgard, on the other hand, though an excellent
player, considering his tender years, was liable to have his nerves
disorganised at any crisis of a rubber upon which an unusual amount
depended.
"Yes," repeated Master Walter, "I'll try my luck at the Landrails, and
you shall come, too, Ralph. Any member has a right to introduce whom he
likes."
"Even a miner from Cariboo--eh, Master Walter, provided he's got
money in his pocket? Well, I'm their man, whether it's for whist or
all-fours."
"All-fours!" repeated the captain with irritation. "Who ever heard of
a gentleman playing at that game? Do, pray, be particular in what you
say to-night. Whatever you do, call a knave a knave, and not a Jack.
The Landrails is a very select place, Ralph, where men who like to
play their whist more quietly than at the Rag look in for an hour or
two rather late."
"Heavier stakes, I suppose?" observed Derrick bluntly.
"Yes, rather. You see, there's always some row with the committee, if
play gets beyond a certain height at the regular clubs. Now, this is
a sort of friendly circle where the points are quite optional, and the
bets too. Yes, I think I shall try my luck for a pony or two."
"I don't think you look quite fit for whist, my lad, to-night," returned
Derrick, gazing gravely into the young man's haggard face. "To-morrow
will be a trying day, remember; I think you had much better get to bed."
"I couldn't do it, man!" replied Walter vehemently--"I dare not. I
should never sleep a wink, and perhaps go mad with thinking before the
morning. Look here, how my hand trembles. I have not nerves of iron,
like you."
"Poor lad, poor lad!" ejaculated the other with affectionate compassion.
"Nothing, as you say, ever makes me tremble--except D. T. Ah, Heaven,
but that is terrible! Never drink, lad, never drink;" and something like
a shudder throbbed through the speaker's brawny frame.
"The Landrails meet here," said Walter, stopping at the door of a
private house in the neighbourhood of St James's Palace; "it is past
eleven, and I daresay play has begun."
"Who owns this house?" asked Derrick carelessly, surveying the
unpretending tenement in question--"or rather, who pays the rent?"
"Well, I hope we shall, Ralph, this evening. The fact is, the hire of
the rooms, the attendance, and even the cost of the refreshments, are
all defrayed each night by the winners in proportion to their gains.
Money does not change hands until the ensuing week, but the secretary
enters all accounts in his ledger, and sees that they are duly squared.
I am answerable for your liabilities to-night, so do you be careful with
the liquors."
As the youthful Mentor administered this wholesome piece of advice
to his senior, the door opened, and they were admitted. It was a most
respectable house, neither very large nor very small, and neatly but
inexpensively furnished. The butler was a man who might have been the
body-servant of an evangelical bishop, and whose conscience was troubled
by the spiritual shortcomings of his right reverend master. To come upon
so grave and sad a man upon the eve of the Derby Day, was quite a homily
in itself. Through the open door of the dining-room could be seen a cold
collation, at which men dropped in from above-stairs if they felt so
disposed; but there were light refreshments in the drawing-room also,
and a great variety of pleasant drinks. The Landrails were thirsty
folks, and imbibed gallons of iced hock and Seltzer water; but they had
not, as a rule, good appetites. There were three tables for whist, and
one dedicated to piquet or cart. All these had massive candlesticks
screwed into their wood-work--perhaps only to prevent their falling
off; but it also put a stop to any possible use of them as a weapon or
missile, and I think that contingency had been also taken into account.
A candlestick comes uncommonly handy to the fingers when luck has gone
pertinaciously against one, and the man who has won all the money is
personally hateful. Above all things, it was important, in that quiet,
friendly circle, to repress all ebullition of temper, and to steer clear
of all disputes. Nobody, one would hope, who was in a position to be
admitted to that society, would stoop to cheating; but a little strap
was inserted at the opposite corners of each table for the convenience
of marking the score, wherein, when the counters were once placed, they
could not he accidentally removed by the elbow. *
* Persons who are acquainted with the game of whist have informed me,
that it is sometimes better--in the case of holding two by honours, for
instance--to be at three than four.
The spacious room--for it was a double drawing-room--was by no means
brilliantly lit up; a couple of bare wax-candles stood upon the
refreshment-table, where, by the by, there was no attendant, each man
helping himself at pleasure; but the other four pair in the room had
shades over them, which dulled their radiance, although it caused
them to throw a very bright light upon the tables themselves. When the
new-comers entered, which they did quite unannounced, the sight struck
one of them at least as a very strange one: three shining isles of
light--for one whist-table was not in use--amid a sea of gloom; ten
thoughtful faces with a sort of halo round them, and one or two sombre
ones standing by like their evil genii, and watching, the play. There
was not a sound to be heard at first, except the dull fall of the
pieces of pasteboard, but presently a hand being finished in their
neighbourhood, a sort of hushed talk began about what would have
happened if somebody had under-played the diamond.
"What are the points?" whispered Derrick in his companion's ear.
"What are the points to-night, Beamish?" inquired Walter of one of the
four, a very unimpassioned-looking young man, who replied with a most
unpleasant and ghastly smile--as though he had cut his throat a little
too high up: "Fives and fifties, my gallant captain, with the odds
in ponies; so, being a younger son, I advise you to go to some other
table."
"Never mind, I am going to make a good marriage," returned Walter
coolly. Mr Beamish had been a penniless government clerk until he wedded
the widow of an opulent builder with half a town for her jointure. "If
you are not full," added the captain, "I declare in here, for myself and
friend."
All four looked up for an instant at the threatened stranger; for your
good player, intent on gain, detests the introduction of an unknown
hand. Somehow or other, although the odds are two to one, "it's always
his cursed luck to have him for a partner." General Prim, who had been
a martinet in the Peninsula, and as offensive to his fellow-creatures as
less favourable circumstances had permitted ever since, gave a ferocious
grin, and shook his single scalp-lock of gray hair like a malignant
pantaloon. The Hon. Pink Hawthorne, attache at the court at Christiana,
but absent from that lively capital upon sick-leave, wrenched his fair
moustache this way and that, and frowned as gloomily as his foolish
forehead would permit. The dealer, a Mr Roberts, an ancient bencher
of one of the Inns of Court, paused with the trump card in his fingers
still unturned. "Does your friend know what the Blue Peter means,
Lisgard?"
"I've been a sailor half my life, sir, and it's devilish odd if I did
not." returned Ralph Derrick grimly.
"What the devil did the fellow mean?" added he to Walter as the game
began, and all the four became at once automatons.
"It's the new system of asking for trumps," answered Walter peevishly.
"The same thing that they called the Pilot the other night. How
ridiculous you have made yourself. See, there's another table up. Bless
the man, not there, that's the piquet place."
Ralph had quietly seated himself next to Major Piccalilli, of the
Irregular Cavalry, Cayenne Station, Upper India, and had already
disturbed his marking-cards, whereby that gallant officer was reduced to
the verge of apoplexy with speechless rage.
"Stay, you shall stick to this one," continued Walter in a low voice;
"that fellow Beamish is hateful to me--and I will cut in yonder. There
is not a muff-table in the room--all these beggars play too well." With
these words, the captain hurried away; and as soon as the rubber he had
been watching was finished, Derrick was admitted of the conclave, to the
exclusion of General Prim, who cursed that circumstance very audibly,
and for a man of his advanced years, with considerable emphasis and
vigour. Derrick fell as a partner to the lot of the gentleman who had
inquired as to his proficiency in the art of asking for trumps.
"If you would only hold your cards a little more on the table, I
should be able to see them myself," remarked Mr Roberts with severity.
"If they look over my hands, sir," returned Derrick reassuringly,
"I'll forgive 'em: that's all.--If you won't take that old gentleman's
bets"--referring to the general, who seemed extremely anxious to back
their adversaries--"then I will;" and he did it--and luck went with
him. There was nothing stronger than champagne to be got at in that
respectable place of business, so Ralph kept his head, and won--a
hundred and fifty pounds or so. Then, the table breaking up, he rose and
stood over his young friend, to see how the cards were going with him.
"Bad," muttered Derrick to himself, as he watched Walter running through
his hand with eager haste, as a woman flirts her fan. His beautiful face
was dark with care, his eyes flashed impatiently upon the man whose turn
it was to lead.
"Our odds are in fifties, eh, Lisgard?" drawled his right-hand
adversary, Captain and Lieutenant Wobegon of the Horse Guards' azure.
"The same as before, I suppose," returned the young man haughtily.
Ralph gave a prolonged whistle. His young friend had a treble up, and
the others nothing, so that he must be betting two hundred and fifty
pounds to one hundred; and "the same as before" too! Within the next
minute, the cards were thrown down upon the table, and the adversaries
scored a treble likewise. "That's been my cursed luck, Ralph, all
to-night!" cried the young man with a little grating laugh. "Four by
honours against one every deal."
"You must have been doing something devilish bad, Lisgard," observed the
Guardsman.
"Yes, I have--playing!" answered Walter bitterly. "But no fellow can
play with sixes and sevens; it demoralises one so."
"All cards do, my grandmother says," answered Wobegon, who for a
Guardsman was not without humour. "She made me promise, when she paid
my debts, my first Derby, that I would never back anything again; and I
never have, except my luck and bills."
Captain Lisgard had naturally a keen appreciation of fun, but he did not
vouchsafe a smile to the facetious Guardsman, who himself joked like an
undertaker, and had never been known to laugh in his life. The fact
was, that nothing could just now commend itself to Master Walter except
winning back his money.
Reader, did you ever play for more than you can afford? Pardon me the
inquiry; there is no occasion to be Pharisaical; for it is even possible
to do worse things than that in your line: moreover, the question of
what is more than you can afford is such a large one, and affords such
opportunities for a nimble conscience to escape. I remember in Lord
Houghton's Life of Keats, that that gallant nobleman, in defending the
poet from the charge of dissipation and gambling, remarks that it all
arose from his having lost ten pounds upon a certain evening at cards.
How, considering that the author of Hyperion had no income, nor any
bank except his Imagination to apply to--and it was notorious that he
could never put a cheque even upon that--I take his Lordship to be a
very charitable peer. Ten pounds must have been, for Keats, a large sum.
But, undoubtedly, the matter is one for a man to decide for himself; the
whole question is relative; and if you are apt to lose your temper, then
remember you play for more than you can afford, although your stakes are
but--penny-stamps. Captain Walter Lisgard had lost his temper and his
money also. There was a numbed sense of misfortune pervading him; it
seemed to him as though he was Predestinated to lose. I am much mistaken
if he had not a sort of humming in his ears. One of the most religious
men whom it has been my fortune to meet, has informed me that, in his
unregenerate days, when he was a gambler and everything else, * he once
prayed to win at cards.----
* "Every sin, sir, in the Decalogue, I am glad to say, have I
committed"--meaning that the present change in him was rendered thereby
all the more satisfactory--"with the sole exception of murder."
"Then it strikes me." said I, "in addition to your other backslidings at
the time you speak of, you were just a trifle blasphemous."
"No, sir," said he; "I think not. All that I possessed in the world was
depending upon the result of a certain game at cart. If I had lost it,
I should have been a beggar. If I won it, I resolutely resolved never to
touch a card again--never to run the risk of experiencing a second time
the mental agony I was then undergoing. I am not ashamed to confess,
sir, that in such a strait I prayed to win; and I did win."
"All I have to say, sir," replied I, "is this: that it was uncommonly
hard upon the other man."
Good resolutions are indeed by no means uncommon among tolerably
young persons in positions of pecuniary peril, such as that of Captain
Lisgard. They vow their candles to this and that patron saint if they
should but escape shipwreck upon the green baize this once. Master
Walter's bid was confined to a few "dips," if one may use so humble a
metaphor, of which about fifty went to the pound, and even those were
not offered in a penitent spirit. He would never play whist with the
Landrails any more. He would never lay the long odds beyond "couters"--a
foolish word he and his set used for sovereigns. He would never back
himself at all when playing with "that fool Pompus"--his present
partner. He would become, in short, exceedingly wise and prudent, if
he should only "pull off" this present rubber. There was "life in the
Mussel" yet. They were at "three all" when Pompus led his knave instead
of his ten, from ten, knave, king, and only got the trick when he should
have got the game.
"We shall never have another chance now," sighed Walter, as his
left-hand adversary turned up the queen. But privately he thought that
fortune would not be quite so cruel as all that came to; moreover, he
had an excellent hand. His fingers trembled as he arranged the long suit
of clubs, headed by tierce major, and saw that he had four trumps to
bring them in with.
As the game went on, however, Pompus exhibited his usual feebleness, and
things began to look very black indeed. In the third round of trumps,
Master Walter's memory left him sudden as an extinguished taper. It
is sad to have to say it of so excellent a player, but he recollected
nothing whatever, except that, if he lost that rubber, it would be an
addition of three hundred pounds to the sum he already owed Captain
Wobegon. It was his turn to play, and he was third hand. He had the king
and ten of trumps. The ace had been played; ay, he remembered that after
a struggle, and the knave too. Yes, his left-hand adversary had played
the knave. Should he finesse his ten or not? That was the question, upon
the decision of which depended some five hundred pounds. Whist is not
always a game of pleasure. Master Walter finessed the ten. "Thousand
devils!" cried Derrick with a tremendous imprecation, "why, the queen
was turned up on your left, lad: you have thrown away the game." And
it was so. Walter Lisgard did not speak a word; but having compared his
note-book with that of Captain Wobegon, retired into a little office out
of the back drawing-room, where the secretary of the Landrails entered
the members' somewhat complicated little accounts with one another in a
very business-like-looking ledger. "You have had a bad night of it for
you, sir," remarked this gentleman quietly; "you generally hold your
own."
"Yes. What is the cursed total?"
"Eighteen hundred."
"Ralph Derrick," said Walter Lisgard, as the two walked up St James's
Street towards their lodgings for bath and breakfasts, but scarcely
for bed, since the morning was already far advanced--"if any horse but
Menelaus wins the race, I am a ruined man."
CHAPTER VI. MR WITHERS WITHDRAWS HIMSELF.
|WHEN Derrick and the captain met at the breakfast-table upon that Derby
morning, there was a note for the latter waiting by his plate. It had
been brought over from the Turf Hotel with apologies, having been
detained there by mistake, "through everybody being so busy," for at
least a week. As he turned it moodily over without opening it, Ralph saw
that it had the Mirk postmark.
"You have a letter from home, I see, lad; lucky dog!"
"Yes, very lucky," replied the young man cynically, as he ran his eye
over the contents; "worse than my infernal luck of last night, and only
less than the misfortune I am looking for to-day is the news in this
letter."
"How is that, lad?"
"Well, you will hear some day."--Here he took the note, and slowly tore
it lengthways into thin strips, and then across, so that it lay in a
hundred fragments.--"But it's a secret, at least it was until a week
ago, but being in a woman's hands, of course she let it slip;" and
Master Walter looked as near to "ugly" as it was possible for his
handsome face to go.
"I fancied your folks at home were unaware of your having intended to
be at the Turf Hotel, and rather thought you were with your regiment,
like a good boy."
The captain returned no answer; but Derrick, who was in excellent
spirits notwithstanding the anxieties of the coming day, continued
to address him in that healthy and cheerful strain which is the most
intolerable of all manners to one who is melancholy, and what is worse,
in dread suspense. "Now, for my part, Walter, any letter in a woman's
hand, as I think yours is--nay, you foolish lad, if you hadn't stuffed
it into your breast-pocket so quickly, I protest I should have thought
it had come from your mother or your sister. Why, you don't mean to
say that that pretty little gate-keeper down at Mirk writes letters to
handsome Master Walter?"
"And why not?" asked the captain defiantly. "If it had come from
Mistress Forest, then, indeed, you might have taken upon yourself to
object, although I understand that even there, you have not yet obtained
the position of bridegroom-elect."
"No," returned Derrick drily. "I was about to say that I should have
welcomed any letter in a woman's hand, especially if it began: 'My
dearest '"----
"What the devil do you mean by looking over my letter?" exclaimed Master
Walter, starting up in a fury.
"Nothing," answered the other, purple with laughter and muffin; "I
never dreamed of such a thing. But since you said it came from the
gate-keeper's daughter, I thought I'd make a shot. The idea of my
wanting to read all the pretty things the little fool writes to a wicked
young dog like you; it's no fun to me to watch a moth at a candle. But
what a spoiled lad it is! Why, here I have had no letter at all from
Mirk, and yet I am content. Silence gives consent, they say; and
particularly in this case, when I know nothing but your lady-mother
prevents Mary writing 'My dearest Ralph' to me. Indeed, if she wrote
'Dear sir, I can have no more to do with you,' it would not have the
smallest effect. What I have made up my mind to do, generally comes
to pass. Where there's a will--that is, supposing it is strong
enough--there is most times a way."
"I know you're a devil of a fellow," sneered Master Walter, rising and
gazing out of window at the bustling street already astir with the Derby
vehicles; "but I am afraid your will can't win me this race."
"It's done a great deal towards it, Captain Lisgard. It brought about
the trial-race with the 'crack,' although my Lord did give himself such
cursed airs, and not only let you in for a good thing, but lent you the
money to take advantage of it to the uttermost."
"That's true," said Walter frankly, and holding out his thin white hand.
"I daresay you think me an ungrateful beast, but I'm worried by a matter
that you know nothing of; besides"----
"Not another word, lad--not another word; I am a rude rough creature,
and I said some unpleasant things myself.--Here is our Hansom, and with
light-green curtains of gauze. I'm cursed if I go down to Epsom with the
colours of The King on my cab. Why, the beggar must have done it to
insult us."
"Stuff and nonsense, Ralph; it's only to keep off the dust. If you have
no curtains, you must wear a veil, that's all. Look there, in yonder
barouche-and-four, every man has a green veil on. By Heaven! that
Wobegon's one of 'em. He's got my I.O.U. for fifteen hundred pounds in
his waistcoat-pocket; and there's that ugly devil Beamish, too.--Well,"
muttered the captain to himself, "I'm glad I didn't go with that
party, at all events."
Master Walter, who was as popular in town as elsewhere, had been asked
to take a seat for that day in half-a-dozen "drags" and barouches,
but he had preferred to go alone with Derrick; not that he enjoyed his
companionship, but because, as I have before said, he gathered some
comfort from his society under the present cloud of anxiety and
apprehension.
"I say, Walter, you are a pretty fellow; you forgot all about the
provisions, but see here!" cried Derrick triumphantly, pulling a hamper
from under the sofa; "a pigeon-pie, a fowl, two bottles of champagne,
and one of brandy!"
"What confounded nonsense!" returned the young man peevishly. "There are
dozens of parties who would have given us lunch. The idea of a hamper on
the top of a Hansom!"
"Well, come, you are wrong anyway, there, lad, for I have seen a dozen
going by this morning."
"Very likely, and you have also seen plenty of vans, each with a barrel
of ale. However, it's of no consequence. If the Frenchman wins, I
could eat periwinkles out of a hand-barrow with a hair-pin; and if he
loses--why, then, I shall not have much appetite."
"Look here, lad," replied Derrick gravely, "this sort of thing won't do.
Never be down on your luck, until, at all events, your luck is down upon
you. You are not cut out for this work, I can see. A man ought to be
sanguine, yet cool; hopeful of gain--yet quite prepared for loss, who
goes in for such a stake as you have got upon to-day's race. A gambler
should be all brain, and no heart: let me suggest, before we start, that
you should just take a little brandy."
"No, no!" ejaculated the captain impatiently. "If I am a funk, as you so
delicately hint, I am not a fool. Come, let's be off. The next, time I
see this room again, I shall be a made man--or a beggar."
To any man, who risks by betting more than he can conveniently spare,
the going to the Derby is by no means a cheerful expedition, whatever
his coming home may chance to be; and further, it may be observed, that
of all professional persons, those who take up the Turf as their line in
life, are the most sombre and unlively.
Many of them are clever fellows enough, and one or two are honest men,
but there is no such thing as fun among them. The Ring would never take
to the snow-balling one another, as the stock-brokers have been known
to do when 'Change was dull. They have only a certain grim and cruel
humour, such as the Yankees use, the point of which lies always in
overreaching one another.
Derrick was right when he said that Master Walter was not fit for such
a calling, but the same thing might, almost with equal force, have been
said of himself. He was not, indeed, of an anxious disposition, but
his temper, when once roused, was almost demoniacal, and he could never
stand being cheated. Now, Cheating, in some form or other, is the soul
of the turf.
Whenever it is possible to trot in that vast procession down to Epsom,
the appearance of which is so gay, and the pace so funereal, the
large-wheeled Hansom does it. Many a pretentious four-in-hand did the
captain and Derrick pass, and many a wicked-looking brougham with its
high stepping-steeds; and the occupants of each had often a word to say
about "the fellow with the beard that Lisgard had picked up, and was
carrying about with him everywhere." For the manly growth that fringed
Ralph Derrick's chin was something portentous, even in these days of
beards, and his appearance was rendered still more striking from the
fact of his wearing an infinite number of wooden dolls in the band of
his hat, where Louis XI. used to stick the images of his patron saints.
In vain Walter had informed him that this was a weakness only indulged
in by snobs. Ralph rejoined (but not without an extra tinge of red in
his weatherbeaten cheek), that being a snob himself, it was therefore
only natural that he (Ralph) should take pleasure in thus adorning
himself. He had rather be a snob than a nob, by a precious sight; he
knew that. As for making an exhibition of himself, if that was really
the case, it was only right that the public should be advertised of the
matter, so he purchased a penny trumpet, and executed thereon the most
discordant flourishes. "Say another word, lad," added he, with cheerful
malice, "and blessed if I don't buy a false nose!"
Walter made no further remonstrance; he leaned back in the Hansom as far
he could, and as much behind the green gauze curtain, until they reached
the course, when his companion divested himself of the objectionable
ornaments, and made a present of a live tortoise, which he had also
acquired on the way, to an importunate gipsy woman, instead of crossing
her palm as requested "with a piece of silver." They could hear by this
time the hum and the roar of the great human sea which surged about the
railings in front of the Grand Stand, and in a few minutes more they
were within them. They pushed their way through the babbling throng
towards a certain corner that had been agreed upon, and there was Mr
Tite Chifney waiting for them, with a very pale face indeed.
"Nothing wrong with the horse, is there?" cried Ralph in a loud and
menacing voice, which caused not a few sharp eyes to glance cunningly
towards them, and set not a few sharp ears to listen to what might come
next.
"No, sir, nothing," returned the trainer. "For Heaven's sake, speak low.
I never saw him looking better in my life. We will see him now, if you
like."
"Where's Blanquette?" continued Ralph, a little reassured by this, as
they moved away towards the Paddock.
"Mr Blanquette is not here, Mr Derrick."
"Not here? Why, he was to join you the day before yesterday, otherwise I
would have come myself."
"He has been here, sir, but he's gone away again?"
"What! Is he not coming back to-day?"
"I hope so, sir; I most sincerity hope so; but the fact is--now take 'it
quietly, for it's none of my fault--he's gone after Jack Withers."
In an instant, while Walter ejaculated a smothered cry of agony and
wrath, Derrick had seized the trainer by the throat. "You know me, sir,"
cried he. "As I swore to treat that tout on the Downs at Mirk, so will I
treat you, if that jockey"----
But two blue-coated men had thrust themselves between the strong man and
his victim; a gentleman in a tight-buttoned frock-coat was coming up,
too, in plain clothes, with that swift determined stride peculiar to
members of "the force," and the crowd grew very thick about them, and
a thousand eyes were being concentrated upon Ralph's furious face, he
knew. If his temper was lost now, he felt that all was lost. With an
effort that almost cost him a fit of apoplexy--"I am sorry," said he,
"that I laid my hand upon you, Mr Chifney."
"That will do," returned the trainer quietly, arranging his neckcloth.
"Mr Inspector, you know me, and there is no occasion for your services."
"All right, Mr Chifney, but you have got a rummish customer to deal with
there," replied the guardian of the law, stroking his chin, and looking
at Derrick, much as a vice-president of the Zoological Society might
regard a novelty in wild beasts, that had been half-promised to the
establishment, and then withdrawn.
"I have never been treated thus," complained the trainer, as the three
moved away, and the gaping crowd gathered round some other object of
attraction, "and have never deserved such treatment from any employer of
mine, although I have kept racing-stables these thirty years. I can make
some allowance for one who has so much money on this horse, as I know
you have, Mr Derrick, but I give you my honour and word that I was as
astounded as Mr Blanquette himself, when I heard the news that Jack had
skedaddled. He was your own jockey, remember, not mine: no boy in my
stables has ever played such a scurvy trick as this."
"Have you any boy that can take this scoundrel's place?" asked Captain
Lisgard impatiently.
"I have got as good riders as can be got, Master Walter, upon so short a
notice; and Menelaus shall have the pick of them. But you know what a
devil of a temper the horse has; and this Withers was the only lad who
understood him."
"How comes it that Blanquette has gone to look for him?" asked Derrick
thoughtfully. "Does he know where he is likely to be found?"
"Not as I know of, sir," returned the trainer gravely, "He said he would
bring him back Dead or Alive--those were his words."
"Stop a moment, Chifney," ejaculated Ralph. "I can scarcely find breath
to utter even the suspicion of it; and the certainty would, I verily
believe, choke me; but do you think it possible that all is not quite on
the square with Blanquette himself?"
"Well, Mr Derrick, I'd rather not say. Mr Blanquette is as much the
owner of the horse as yourself. He's my employer too--and nobody ever
heard Tite Chifney breathe a word"----
"Thousand devils!" cried Derrick, stamping his foot so that the print
of it was left in the yielding turf; "is this a time for your senseless
scruples? I ask you, do you think it possible that this man--my pal
for years, one that has oftentimes faced death in my company, and once
shared the last scanty meal that stood between us and starvation--do you
think it possible, I say, that this man has sold the race?"
"Well, sir," replied Mr Chifney frankly, "about victuals eaten under the
circumstances you describe, of course I'm no judge; but as to friendship
and that, I've known a son play his own father false upon the turf
before now; and what an Englishman will do in the way of smartness, you
may take your oath a Frenchman will do--and a deuced sight worse too.
Moreover, since you press this question, I may say that your partner has
been seen talking with Wiley--Lord Stonart's agent--more than once."
"And why, in the devil's name, was I not told?"
"That was not my business, Mr Derrick; you might not have thanked me for
interfering with your affairs. I thought that you and Mr Blanquette were
one. Besides, to confess the truth, I thought it was The King who was
being nobbled. And since Lord Stonart has chosen to withdraw his
horses from my keeping--chiefly, by the by, through his disgust at that
trial-race in which his crack was beaten--I, of course, was no longer
bound to look after his interests; no, indeed, quite the reverse," added
the trainer with an offended air.
"Did this Frenchman say he would be here to-day, if he did not find the
boy?" inquired Captain Lisgard sharply, with an unpleasant look in his
fine eyes.
"I can answer that question for him," returned the gold-digger grimly.
"If he has played me false, he will not only not be here; he will have
put the sea--and not the narrow one either--between himself and Ralph
Derrick; for he knows me very well. But now"--here he drew a long
breath, and made a motion with his mighty arms as though he would
dismiss that matter for the present, tempting as it was to dwell
upon--"let us see the boy that is to take this rascal's place. We may
pull through still with luck."
CHAPTER VII. AT EPSOM.
|HAVE you ever seen at the beginning of a Great Law Case a certain hush
and stir among the gentlemen of the long robe, and then a young man
rise--not much over forty, that is--and inform "my lud" that his
unfortunate client was placed at a sad disadvantage, for that, through
the unexpected but unavoidable absence of his leader, the whole
case must needs devolve upon his own (the junior's) shoulders? The
circumstance is of course most lamentable, but still the young counsel
(if he is worth a guinea fee) has a certain confident radiance about
him, for he feels that his opportunity has come at last, and that he has
but "to grasp the skirts of happy chance," to be borne from that moment
woolsackwards. So was it with Mr Samuel Hicks, horse-jockey unattached,
when suddenly called upon to fill the vacant seat of Brother Withers,
absent without leave. To ride a Derby at a moment's notice was, to one
in his position, almost what to take the command of the Mediterranean
squadron would be to a young gentleman at the naval school. But not a
trace of indecision was visible on the young centaur's countenance.
"I will do my best, gentlemen," said he modestly; then added, with the
irrepressible assurance of his class, "and I think I know how to ride."
"You know nothing, and are an infernal young fool," returned the trainer
sharply. "You never were outside of such a horse as Menelaus in your
life. If he is in a good temper, a child might steer him; but if he
jibs--if he stands stock-still in that great race an hour hence, as he
is as like to do as not--what will you do then?"
"Bless my soul, sir," cried the boy, his golden Future--not without
"mother in a comfortable cottage, and easy for life," let us hope, in
the foreground--all swept away by this relentless prediction--"Bless my
soul, sir, I think I should cut his throat."
"I like this fellow," cried Derrick, slapping the lad upon the back.
"Look you, here is twenty pounds, which you may keep in any case, and
you had better take it now, for if you lose the race, there will be
plenty of folks to want all my money. But if you win, boy, I will make
it Two Hundred."
"And I will make it Four," added Master Walter fervently.
"So, you see, you will be a made man for life," remarked the trainer
kindly. "But listen to me, Sam, or else all this glitter will be the
merest moonshine. Be sure never touch your horse with whip or spur; for
Withers, I have noticed, never did. But if the beast jibs--I saw Jack do
this at the trial-race, and once before--snatch at his ear. There may be
some secret in the way of handling it, but there is no time for finding
that out. Do you twist it hard."
"O sir, I'll twist it off, but he shall win," returned the jockey
plaintively; and off he went to don his new owner's colours--black and
red--as proudly as an ensign to his first battle-field.
It had got about that there was some hitch about Menelaus, and the
odds were rising rapidly against him; and when the large and somewhat
ungainly animal took his preparatory canter in front of the stand under
the guidance of the uncelebrated Hicks, they rose still higher. If any
of his ancient confidence had remained to Captain Lisgard, he could
scarcely have resisted the tempting offers that were being roared out in
harsh and nasal tones from every quarter of the Ring.
"I'll lay 7 to 1 against Many Laws" (for most of the racing
fraternity favoured Mr Derrick's pronunciation of that name); "I'll lay
8 to 1."
"I'll take 4 to 1. I name the Winner" (for the relation between The
King and the French horse in the betting was that of buckets in a
well).
"I take odds that Menelaus is not placed," exclaimed a shrill and
sneering voice close beside where the two men most interested in that
depreciated animal were standing.
"What odds will you take, my Lord?" inquired Captain Lisgard, biting
his lip in wrath, for it was Lord Stonart who was offering them, the man
whose confidential agent had been talking with Blanquette, and to whose
machinations it was almost certainly owing that Menelaus had lost his
rider.
"Ah, Lisgard, how are you?" returned he coolly. "How came it that I
missed you just now in the Paddock? Haven't seen you since that morning
on Mirk Down. So we're going to try that race over again, eh?"
"I think you were asking for odds, my Lord, about the black horse being
placed?" rejoined the captain, pale with passion at the sarcasm that
lurked in the other's tone.
"Yes, so I was. There has something gone amiss, they say, with him. I'll
take 4 to 1 in fifties--hundreds, if you like."
"Don't do it," whispered Derrick eagerly. "Don't you see what the
scoundrel reckons upon? If the horse runs straight, he will win the
race, but if he jibs, he will be nowhere. He is therefore taking odds
where he ought to give them."
"You don't take me, eh?" continued his Lordship. "Well, I think your
friend advises you wisely. See, the horses are moving towards the hill
Like myself, you have no stall, I conclude. Where are you going to place
yourself? I think I shall remain below here on the green."
"Then I shall see the race from the roof my Lord," answered the
captain savagely, and thither he and his companion betook themselves
accordingly.
To look down from that elevation upon Epsom Downs just before the start
for the Great Race, is to behold a wondrous spectacle. Men--a quarter
of a million or so--as black and thick as bees, and emitting much such a
hum and clangour as attends the swarming of those perilous insects;
and the carriages, twelve deep--dwarfed to much the same proportions
as those chariots which used to be dragged in public by the Industrious
Fleas. But raise your race-glass, and with a single sweep you survey
every social degree of human life; from the duchess to the poor drunken
hag on the look-out for empty bottles; from the peer to the ragged
thief who bides his moment to snatch his booty from his Lordship's
carriage-seat. This rascal's opportunity is coming. If there are five
minutes in an Englishman's life in which he is indifferent to the
preservation of his property, it is those five which are now at hand
when that little jockey rainbow yonder is gathering on the hill.
Thirty of the fleetest horses in the world are about to contend for the
greatest prize that horse can win: it is not that circumstance, however,
which makes so many hearts go pit-a-pat, keeps all lips sealed, and
rivets every eye, except that of the pickpocket and his natural enemy
the policeman, upon that shifting speck of colour. All are aware of the
enormous interests that hang upon the result impending, even if they
have none themselves; vague hut gigantic shadows of loss and gain
forecast themselves upon every mind. In a few seconds more, certain
unknown scoundrels--fellow-creatures, however, with whom we have
indissoluble sympathies--will be enriched beyond the dreams of avarice;
and certain other poor devils will be ruined. A solemn hush pervades all
Pandemonium. The very organ-grinders cease their hateful discord; the
vendors of race-cards give their lungs brief respite; the proprietors of
Aunt Sallies intermit their useless cry of "Three throws a penny," and
stand on tiptoe, with their fasces beneath their arms, as eager as my
Lord who totters insecure erect upon the front seat of his drag. Nervous
folks see all these things because they cannot keep their eyes fixed
where they would. A sudden roar breaks forth, not in the least like
human speech, but it means that They are Off!
"Are they off, Ralph?" inquires Master Walter of his companion, "or
is it a lie?" His small and well-gloved hand is trembling so, that
his race-glass gives him views like a kaleidoscope. Splendour or
Penury--nay, worse, or Shame await him, and are at the threshold. He
knows not yet the foot of which it is that draws so nigh; and he dares
not look forth to see.
"They are not off yet, lad," returned Ralph; and even he has to
swallow something which appears to be in his throat, but is not, before
he can give that assurance.
Master Walter draws a long breath, for this is a reprieve, and
endeavours once more to fix his eyes upon the dancing horses; but it
is the retina of the mind only which presents its image. He beholds his
mother's face, paler and more careworn than ever, sharpened with pain,
through something which she has learned since----
"They're off! they're off!" is again the cry; and this time the great
plane of faces shifts and flashes as it follows the speck of colour now
in rapid motion--at first, a double line, next a lengthening oval, and
then a string of brilliants, knotted here and there. As they approach
Tatten-ham Corner, Walter perceives, for the first time, that they
are horses, and that three are leading all the rest--Green, Black, and
Yellow. The chances are then but two to one against him. How they lag
and crawl, these vaunted coursers of the air! How long is this frightful
suspense to last? "The Yellow's beat--Mica is out of it--the Black
wins--the favourite is beaten, blast him!--Menelaus wins"----There is
a thunder of hoofs, a flash of Black and Green, then a cry such as, even
on Epsom Downs, was never before heard. "By Heaven, he's off! The boy is
killed! Was it short of the post? What number's up? The Green has won.
The King, The King! Hurrah, hurrah!" And so the babblement breaks
forth again, and the tumultuous crowd flows in like water upon the fair
green course, save one small space of it kept clear by men with staves,
where lies a poor whitefaced jockey, senseless and motionless, for whose
misfortune everybody is sorry, but especially those who have backed the
Black.
All had gone well with the French horse until within a few strides
of the winning-post; he was leading by half a length, and his victory
seemed certain to all eyes, when suddenly--whether through the devilish
nature of the beast, or whether poor Sam had touched him with the heel
in that overwhelming crisis, can never now be known--but he stopped
stock-still, and shot his rider (snatching at his ear as he flew by) a
dozen yards like cricket-ball from catapult. The uncelebrated Hicks
had actually preceded the rival jockey at the post, but left his horse
behind him; and there the beast was standing yet, with his fore-feet
planted resolutely before him, and his untwisted ears laid level with
his neck, as though he was giving "a hack" at leap-frog.
"Come down, and let us get away from this, lad," broke forth Derrick
impatiently: "it is no use waiting here."
"It is no use waiting here," echoed the young man mechanically, as he
followed his friend through the fast-thinning crowd down to the basement
story.
At the foot of the staircase they met Mr Chifney, looking very white and
disconcerted. He, too, had put more trust than he was wont to place
in horses in Menelaus, and had suffered in consequence; and the wily
trainer was not used to losses.
"How is the boy?" inquired Derrick.
"Bad, sir, bad: it is a bad business altogether," muttered the man of
horseflesh, not perhaps wholly thinking of the boy.
"It was not his fault, however," continued Ralph. "No man could have
kept his seat during such a devil's trick. Look you, let him have all he
requires; everything. I will be responsible."
Mr Chifney had expected from this stormy client some terrible outbreak
of wrath and disappointment; and lo, he was all benevolence and charity!
His astonishment exhibited itself significantly enough in his face; but
Ralph mistook the cause.
"Why do you stare so, sir? I suppose I am good for a few pounds yet. The
horse is mine; and I apprehend will be security enough; though I wish I
could afford to shoot him--cursed beast! Where is Lord Stonart?"
"A Great Personage has, I have heard, just sent for him, to offer his
congratulations."
Ralph Derrick uttered a harsh and bitter laugh. "I suppose we couldn't
see this interesting interview, eh?"
"Certainly not, sir," replied the trainer hurriedly, alarmed by
Derrick's tone and air. "I hope you are not thinking of putting us all
in the wrong by any act of violence?"
"Well, no; I thought of conferring the honour of knighthood upon his
Lordship with a horsewhip--that's all."
"Take him away," whispered the trainer to Master Walter; "for Heaven's
sake, take him home."
"Yes, home. Come home, Ralph," repeated the young man, like one in a
dream.
"Ha, Lisgard, how goes it?" drawled Captain Wobegon, sauntering slowly
up to where the three were standing. "I hope you recouped yourself for
last night's misfortunes by The King just now. Devilish near thing,
though. The Frenchman did win by a head, but luckily it was the boy's,
and not his own."
"I backed the wrong horse," returned Master Walter gloomily. "And I owe
you--how much is it?"
"A little over fourteen hundred. If it's any convenience to you, I
can wait a fortnight or so; I would say longer--but Lurline--she
was inquiring after you, only yesterday, by the by; I felt quite
jealous--has a soul above economy. And after the Derby, you know, folks
send in their bills; especially jewellers. They know if they are not
paid then, it's a bad look-out. What a lot that fellow Stonart must
have netted! I'm sorry to see you so down in the mouth; you used to be
such a lucky fellow."
"Used to be such a lucky fellow," mused Master Walter, as he and his
companion made their way to the outskirts of the heath, where a place
had been appointed at which their Hansom was to wait for them. "Yes, so
I was. I used to win in a small way, and yet people were always glad to
see me. They won't be so pleasant, I reckon, when they find that I am a
defaulter. I can't get at any money for a year, and who 'll wait a year
without making a row? Even if they do, mine will be a fine coming of
age. How could I have been such a frightful fool?"
"Tell your fortune, my pretty gentleman," observed a gipsy girl, laying
her walnut-coloured fingers upon the young man's coat-sleeve. "You are
born under a lucky star."
"I may have been born there; but I have wandered far away from its
influence," replied Master Walter, shaking her hand off somewhat
roughly. "If you want a shilling, you shall have it; for I have nothing
but other people's money about me, and that one always parts with very
readily. But don't call me lucky, for that's a lie, you jade."
"Bless your handsome face," returned the gipsy humbly, "it's a shame
that it ever should be crossed by the shadow of sorrow. You can't be
unlucky, sir, with eyes like yours--especially," added she, as the two
strode hastily away, "especially among the ladies."
"Do you hear that, lad?" laughed Derrick encouragingly; but the young
man was too wrapt up in his own sombre thoughts to heed such things.
"I must sell out," muttered he to himself; "that's the first thing. And
I must run down to Mirk; there is no knowing what that spitfire there
may do else."
"Here's our Hansom, and the fellow not drunk for a wonder!" exclaimed
Derrick. "Where's the horse, man?"
"In this next booth, sir," returned the driver. "I will put him to in no
time.--I am afraid your honours have not won."
"See, Walter, lad," cried Derrick in remonstrance; "that's your fault.
Don't hang out such signals of distress that everybody who meets us
offers their confounded pity. Be a man, lad; be a man. Besides, what did
that gipsy girl say just now? Many a wise word is spoken in jest. She
said, with your good looks, that you must needs he lucky with the women.
I should like to see the heiress who would say 'No' to Captain Walter
Lisgard. A good marriage would mend all this, and"----
"Go to the devil!" exclaimed the young man passionately.
"You are out of temper, lad," returned the other gravely; "but don't say
those sort of things to me, for I have not deserved them."
"Not deserved them! you have been my ruin, curse you!" continued the
other with vehemence. "But for you, you drunken"----
"Take you care, Walter Lisgard!" roared the bearded man in a voice of
thunder. "Do not make me strike you, for I would as soon strike my
son. How can all this be my fault? Do you suppose that I have not lost
also--almost all I have in the world save a few hundreds?"
"Ay, mine, I suppose," exclaimed Walter bitterly. "I know I owe you a
thousand pounds."
"Yes," returned the other, producing his pocket-book, "here are three
I.O.U.s bearing your signature, for two, three, and five hundred
pounds."
"You shall be paid, sir, never fear," rejoined the young man insolently.
"No man but you, however, would have produced them at such a time. But
it serves me right for herding with such people."
"Thank you, young man. At the same time, few of your fine gentlemen
would treat them this way." Thus saying, he tore them into little
strips, and scattered them to the wind.--"All I ask, by way of
repayment, now is, that you will listen to a few words I have to say.
I have loved you, Walter Lisgard, in spite of yourself, and would have
laid down my life for yours. I have concealed from my own heart as well
as I could the selfish baseness that underlies your every act--but that
is over now. Look you, on the coasts where I have come from, there is
many a bay which, if you saw it at high tide, you would say: 'What a
beautiful harbour! what smooth and smiling water! This is a place for
all men to cast anchor.' But when the tide is going out, you see how you
have been deceived. Here is a reef that would wreck a navy; here is a
jagged and cruel rock, and there another and another. With every one,
you say to yourself, surely this is the last. But for this and for that,
there was never a better anchorage; and how beautiful the place is! What
luxuriant foliage--what exquisite verdure fringes the shore--just the
shores, you know. But when the tide is quite out, it is impossible to
like the place any longer. There are nothing but reefs and rocks to
be seen then, and a few loathsome reptiles among the slime. Now, Walter
Lisgard, I have come upon you at dead low-water, and I don't wish to
meet you any more. You will deceive others, of course, who may see you
at the flow, but you will never deceive me. I shall go down to Mirk,
after a little, to bring away my wife. Take my advice, and don't be
there. Above all things, see that your mother does not cross me in that
matter, or it will be worse for all concerned. I have nobody now in the
world who cares for me save Mary Forest, and they shall not rob me of
her. Here is the Hansom in which we can no longer sit together. You are
not used to walking, being what is called a gentleman, so you had better
take it. All I ask you is, to leave our lodgings before I reach them,
since you will arrive there first; or if not--I will take myself off
elsewhere; I should be sorry to be under the same roof, with you again,
young man."
Then pulling his hat forward upon his brow, in place of farewell, Ralph
Derrick turned his back upon Walter Lisgard, and took his way to town on
foot. As the captain, sitting alone in no very enviable frame of mind,
passed him afterwards upon the road, he could not help remarking to
himself how old and bowed the insolent fellow looked.
CHAPTER VIII. MISS AYNTON'S THUMB IS TURNED BACK.
|I SUPPOSE, Mary, that I shall be sure of getting a letter from Mr
Arthur today?" observed my Lady to her maid, as that confidential
domestic was proceeding with the duties--which were by no means
mysteries--of her toilet, upon the morning after the picnic at Belcomb.
He is certain to reply concerning a matter which was important enough
to cause the use of the telegraph."
"I suppose so, my Lady: very like."
Nothing could be more in contrast than the tones in which these two
persons had spoken; the question had been earnest, almost fervent, and
one which evidently was put in order to evoke an affirmative answer; the
reply was given carelessly enough, or rather as though the thoughts of
her who uttered it were absent from the matter altogether.
"'Very likely,' Mary! Why, how can it be otherwise? Just run down and
open the letter-bag; you know where to find the key."
"Yes, my Lady."
As Mary Forest left the room, she cast at her beloved mistress, whose
eyes were fixed thoughtfully upon the pattern of the carpet, and
observed her not, a look of unspeakable love and pity; and when the door
was shut between them, she burst into a passion of silent tears.
"It will kill her," murmured she; "she can never survive this second
trouble. Sorrow and shame, sorrow and shame, are all that fall to my
dear mistress now. How shall I tell her? May Heaven give her strength
to bear it; but I wish, for her sake, that she was dead, and already the
angel she deserves to be----Ah, you minx!" ejaculated Mary, interrupting
herself as she passed Miss Aynton's room, and shaking her plump fist at
its unconscious tenant; "you'll go to quite another place, and serve you
right too." And seemingly comforted by this reflection, she wiped her
eyes with the hem of her apron, and hurried down the back-stairs upon
her errand.
"What will Arthur think?" mused my Lady, as she awaited her maid's
return with a beating heart. "He will certainly connect the request to
destroy that letter with what I said to him at the Watersmeet a while
ago, about"--she did not utter the concluding words at all, but only
formed them with her lips--"poor Ralph. If Arthur suspects, it will be
with him the first step to knowledge; and yet he would never use it to
my hurt. If there were anything amiss in the concealment of this matter,
then I should fear him, for he is the soul of honour. But my bastard
son--God help him, if he ever comes to know it--robs nobody even of this
barren title, and my children's money is due to no one else. They might
have been paupers as well as bastards; let their mother comfort herself
with that thought all she can." My Lady's lips were crooked into a
bitter smile: hers was not a cynical face--far from it--and such an
expression misbecame it sadly; it looked more like a contortion of the
mouth induced by bodily pain.--"Well, Mary, is there no letter from Mr
Arthur?"
"No, ma'am; none."
"Then there is one more cause for anxiety added to the rest of my
troubles, that is all. Ah me, how foolishly I used to fret myself in
days when there was no cause! Perhaps he never got the telegraph, and
not understanding why the letter came to him, has transmitted it back
to--to the person to whom it was addressed.--Mary, you had better
presently run over to the Lisgard Arms, and see to that. Steve will
give it up, if you explain to him that it is your handwriting. Tell him,
if necessary, that I promise him he shall not lose the inn. I must have
that letter. Mr Arthur could not possibly know the London address of--of
that person, could he?"
"Very likely, my Lady, yes--at least, I don't know."
"Mary!"
"I beg your pardon, madam," replied the waiting-maid, starting like one
aroused from a dream. "I was not thinking what I said; I was thinking of
something else."
"I think you might give me your attention, Mary," returned my Lady
sighing: "you cannot be thinking of anything so momentous as this
matter, which involves sorrow, shame, and perchance utter ruin."
"Alas! but I can, my Lady," answered the other gravely; "and I am doing
it. There has something happened worse than anything you can guess at.
Master Walter"----
"Great Heaven! has any accident happened to my boy? I saw him hut an
hour ago; he came into my room, dear fellow, to bid me good-bye before
he started for the station. The young horse was in the dog-cart----"
"Mary, Mary, do not--do not tell me that my Walter is killed!"
"He is quite well, my Lady, so far as I know--quite well in health."
"Thank Heaven for that! Bless you for that, Mary! Why did you frighten
me so, if there is nothing the matter?"
"There is something the matter, my Lady. Pray, command yourself;
you will have need of all your fortitude. I would never tell it
you--burdened as you are already--only you must know it; you, above
all, and no one else, if we can help it."
"More secrets! more deception, Mary! Spare me, if you can, dear friend;
I am sorely tried already."
"I cannot spare you, my Lady, or I would do so, Heaven knows; nay, I
would almost take the shame upon my own shoulders, if that might shield
you from the sorrow it must needs bring with it. Miss Letty"----
"It is not fit that Shame and my daughter should be mentioned in the
same breath," replied my Lady, rising, and speaking with dignity. "Do
not continue; I forbid you to speak. What you were going to say is
false, and I will not listen."
"It is true, my Lady--true as that the sun is shining now. Of course,
Miss Letty has nothing to do with it; but it was through her I learned
it."
"Does she know it, then?" asked my Lady sternly.
"Certainly not, madam; and Heaven grant she never may. She's as
pure-minded as any seraph, and, like Charity, thinketh no evil. But she
told me this afternoon--seeing that you were troubled, and not liking
to pain you, perhaps without reason, and speaking to me as her old nurse
and friend, who loves all the Lisgards, good and bad (for they are not
all good, alas, alas!), and who will love them to the end--she told
me that something which she had overheard between Miss Rose and Master
Walter"----
"You mean Sir Richard," interposed my Lady.
"No, madam--his brother. It was Master Walter that I was speaking of the
other day in the carriage, and whom I understood your Ladyship to
say that Miss Aynton had refused. I knew very well that they were
love-making, flirting and such like upon the sly; but I did not know--I
could not suspect----- O mistress dear, a terrible disgrace has befallen
you, through that infamous young hussy, Miss Rose Aynton--though
what Master Walter could have seen in the Jade, I am sure passes my
comprehension altogether."
"Disgrace! Walter! Rose Aynton! What do you mean, woman?" asked my Lady
angrily. "You must be mad, to say such things. I heard Sir Richard ask
the girl to be his wife with my own ears, and she refused him."
"Did she, my Lady? Well, I'm surprised at that, for I should have
thought she would have stuck at nothing.--But let me tell the whole
story. What Miss Letty heard at the picnic was this: she heard Master
Walter cursing Miss Rose. That was an odd thing for a young gentleman
to do to a young lady--although, for that matter, I have no doubt she
deserved it--was it not? Well, that was what Miss Letty thought. She
had never heard such words before, and could scarcely force her innocent
lips to repeat them; but I made her do it. And certainly Master Walter
expressed himself pretty strong. It seems he was angered about the young
woman's behaviour to his brother yesterday"----
"Ay," interrupted my Lady quietly, and still thinking that the prejudice
of her waiting-maid had much exaggerated matters, "that was partly my
fault; I begged Miss Aynton to be more complaisant in her manner to Sir
Richard."
"Well, Master Walter might have been annoyed, madam, but what right had
he to be jealous! and especially what relation could exist between him
and Miss Rose, which justified him in using such dreadful words? Fancy
swearing at her, my Lady!"
"Yes, that is shocking indeed, Mary. Miss Letty, however, must certainly
have misunderstood him."
"That's what I told her, my Lady, in hopes to quiet her a bit; but I did
not believe it myself, no more than you do. We don't suppose that Miss
Letty invented the oaths, do we?"
"That is true," sighed Lady Lisgard. "It makes me very wretched to think
that my boy Walter should have so far forgotten himself as to use such
language to a young girl--a guest, too, in his mother's house. I shall
certainly demand an explanation of it from his own lips."
"Alas, there is no need, madam," returned the waiting-maid. "I can tell
you all--if you can bear to listen to it."
"I am listening," said my Lady wearily; but she sat with her back
towards Mistress Forest, and once, in the course of her recital, she
uttered a piteous moan, and covered her face with her hands.
"When Miss Letty told me what I have just said, my Lady, and had parted
from me a little comforted, trying to persuade herself that she really
might have been mistaken in what she had overheard, I instantly sought
out Anne Rees, and bade her come with me to my room. You wouldn't have
believed it in a girl as you yourself chose out of the village school,
and who has been at the Abbey under my own eye for four years; but she
refused point-blank: very respectful, I must say, but also very firm. 'I
durstn't do it,' said she, all of a twitter--'not till Miss Rose is abed
and asleep; or if I do, you may be certain sure as she will come to know
it, and get out of me every word that may pass between us two.'
"The girl looked as scared as though she had seen a ghost, and yet my
request did not seem to come on her at all unexpected; and, in point of
fact, she knew what she was wanted for well enough. However, I thought
it best to let her have her way; and so it was arranged that she was to
come to my room as soon as she had done with the young ladies--although
'tis little enough, indeed, she has done for Miss Letty of late weeks,
but all for that spiteful little hussy, Miss Rose.
"'Now,' said I when I got her alone, 'Anne Rees, there is nobody to
listen to what we say, and you may speak to me as to your own mother.'
"'Ah, Mistress Forest,' answered she, beginning to whimper,' I only wish
I dared.'
"'This young lady has got you under her thumb, I see, Annie. Now, if
you'll tell me the whole truth of what is going on between her and
Master Walter, I promise you that I'll turn her thumb back. It will
hurt her a little--and that you won't be sorry for, perhaps--and it will
set you free.'
"'Oh, Mistress Forest, if you could only do that, I would be a good
girl all my life, and never try on other people's clothes again, nor be
a spy upon my Lady, and'---- Here she stopped quite short, and looked as
though she would have bitten her tongue off.
"'Now, Anne,' said I, 'you must tell me, whether you will or not:
for you have gone too far to turn back. How did Miss Rose Aynton make a
slave of a well-conducted girl like you--with nothing but vanity, that
I know of, to be said against you--and compel you to do all this dirty
work for her?'
"Well, Mistress Forest, as you truly say, I was always a vain child;
and Heaven has punished me pretty sharp for it. One day, when the young
ladies were out, and I was in Miss Aynton's room a-setting it to rights,
what should I come upon--where, perhaps, I had no right to look for it,
for it was evidently-meant to be hidden--but a queer-shaped leather box
with trinkets in it.'
"'A jewel-case, I suppose you mean, Anne.'
"'Yes, ma'am; but they were none of those as Miss Aynton was in the
habit of wearing--nor had she that box when she first came: she must
have brought it down with her after she went back to London for a week
in the early part of the year. However, all as struck me then was the
beauty of the jewels; and I thought there was no harm in my just trying
them on in the front of the swing mirror. My ears not being pierced, I
couldn't fix the earrings, although I wouldn't a-minded a little pain,
and they sparkled like morning-dew; but I clasped on the pearl necklace
and the bracelets, and stood admiring myself in the looking-glass a
good long time. Then all of a sudden I saw an angry face looking over my
shoulder, and heard a cruel voice whisper: "Thief, thief!" just like the
hiss of a wood-snake. I scarcely recognised Miss Rose, who had always
looked so pleasant, and been such a smooth-spoken young lady.
"I could send you to prison, Anne Eees for this," continued she, very
grave and slow; "and I will, too, if you don't do everything I tell
you. I hate a thief."
"Lor, miss," cried I, "have mercy, for Heaven's sake! I never meant to
thieve nothing."
"And I hate a liar," added she, looking so cold and cruel that she made
me shudder. "You break open my drawer--not a word, you had girl, or I'll
send to Dalwynch for a policeman--and I actually find my property on
your very person! You ought to go to jail for this; and perhaps I am
wrong not to send you there. However, remember; from this moment, you
are my servant--only mine; and whatever I tell you to do, whether it
is against your late mistress or not, see that you do it; and dare not
to breathe one word of anything that I do, or speak, or possess--such as
these jewels, for instance--or you will rue it bitterly, Amie Rees."
"'Of course I promised, Mistress Forest, for I was in such a state of
terror that I would have promised anything; but you cannot imagine to
what a slavery I bound myself!'
"'I know all about that, Anne.' said I: 'everybody knows you're become
a spy and a sneak. But there is no occasion for you to follow such
vocations any longer. My Lady would never believe a word of your
intending to steal those things: I can promise you her protection; so
make your mind quite easy upon that point.--But now, what about Master
Walter?'
"'Well, Mistress Forest, the jewels were his present, to begin with.
There have been very wicked goings on. It was quite dreadful to see her
kiss dear good Miss Letty at night, and return her "God bless you!" so
pious like, when she was not blessing her--I mean Miss Rose--at all. Oh,
Mistress Forest, I have known all this for weeks and weeks, and dared
not speak one word; and now the truth is almost too terrible to tell.'
"And then, my Lady," pursued Mistress Forest, "she told me things which
it is not necessary to repeat to you. 'I knew she was telling truth; but
in order to assure myself that it was so, I crept out with naked feet,
and listened at Miss Aynton's door, and I heard two voices"----
"Did you recognise them, woman; are you sure of that?" asked my Lady
sternly.
"Ah, yes, madam--there is no doubt."
"Heaven help us, and forgive us!" murmured my Lady, with bowed head.
"Ah, Walter, Walter, I had expected Shame, but not from deed of yours!
Where is this--Miss Aynton, Mary?"
"At her breakfast, my Lady; and doubtless making an exceedingly good
one. She is not one to let her conscience interfere with her appetite,
bless you! Like the murderer under sentence in Dalwynch jail, as I read
of in the paper yesterday, she 'takes her meals with regularity,'
I warrant; and does not in any way physically deteriorate under the
distressing circumstances of her situation."
"Send her to me, Mary--in the boudoir yonder," said my Lady gravely.
"Tell her I desire to speak with her very particularly. Breakfast? No,
alas! I feel as though a morsel of food would choke me. Send her hither
at once."
CHAPTER IX. THRUST AND COUNTER-THRUST.
|I CANNOT, for my own part, at all agree with the depreciatory
expressions used by Mistress Forest with respect to Miss Rose Aynton's
personal appearance. "What Master Walter could have seen in her," &c.,
it was easy enough for anybody else to see who was not of her own sex.
A magnificent figure, masses of silken hair that, when unbound, would
ripple almost to her dainty feet, and a countenance "bright as light,
and clear as wind;" and indeed this latter was too keen and sharply cut
for my taste. The sort of expression which one likes to see in one's
lawyer, does not so well become the object of our heart's affections.
Of course, there was nothing of steel about Miss Rose, except what might
have been in her crinoline; but I never saw man or woman who gave me so
much the idea of being armed cap--pied; she seemed to be equipped in
a complete Milan suit of proof, impregnable, invulnerable. Like Le Noir
Fainant in Ivanhoe, she never attacked anybody, although my Lady
fancied she had recently detected signs of aggression about her; and
those who knew her best avoided putting the temptation in her way.
But when she entered her hostess's boudoir by invitation, upon that
particular morning, she looked not only, as usual, on her guard; there
was also a certain slumbrous fire in her dark eyes, which betokened
onslaught--the initiative of battle. My Lady herself remarked it, not
without pity. "How little is this poor lost creature aware," thought
she, "that I know all."
But she was quite wrong in this. Miss Rose had almost gathered the truth
from the trembling fingers and frightened manner of her tiring-maid that
morning; and the thing had been quite confirmed to her by the malicious
triumph with which Mary Forest had delivered her mistress's request to
see her in the boudoir upon very particular business.
"Will you please to sit down, Miss Aynton?"
Yes, it was so. The secret was out. Not even a morning salutation from
her friend and hostess; and the hand only outstretched to point her out
a chair at the other extremity of the room. "Before proceeding with what
I have to say," began my Lady, "I wish to know whether your aunt is in
town."
"I believe so, Lady Lisgard; I think she has come back from
Leamington--although I have not heard from her for the last two days."
"That is well. When I hinted, yesterday morning, that it would be better
for you to return to London, I was unaware of the necessity for your
departure from this roof at once--immediately--and for ever."
"Indeed!" Not a muscle moved: confident in the goodness, if not of her
cause, at least of her Milan suit; conscious, too, of the possession
of a Damascus poniard, undreamed of by the foe, and admirable for close
encounters, her right hand nervously opened and shut as though to clutch
the handle--that was all.
"You have disgraced this house and me: yourself and your sex."
"You lie, insolent woman," returned the other; "and judge others by
yourself."
Each started to her feet, and looked her enemy in the face as she slung
these words of flame.
"It is worse than useless, girl, thus to brazen it out," continued my
Lady, attaching no importance to the emphasis the other laid upon
her last words. "Outraging not only moral laws, but even the rites of
hospitality, you have intrigued with my own son under my own roof."
"You dare to say so, Lady Lisgard, do you? It is only for his sake, I
swear, that I do not brand you Wanton, for that calumny. I could
do it; you know I could, although you wear that look of wonder. Was
not that man Derrick once your lover? Ah! you wince at that. Sir
Robert--good, easy man--he knew nothing, of course"----
Here she stopped, for my Lady's face was terrible to look upon.
"Be silent, bad, bold girl! You shoot your poisoned arrows at a venture,
and aim nothing home. You know not what a wife should be--how should
you? You!"
It is not true that the swan is "born to be the only graceful shape
of Scorn." A fair woman unjustly slandered is its rival therein. Rose
Aynton cowered before that keen contempt--beneath the dropping of those
bitter words---as though they were sword and fire.
"I will never forgive you this, Lady Lisgard," muttered she--"never,
never!"
"You! you forgive! To such as you, it would be idle to protest my
soul is spotless. The man whose name you have soiled by uttering it--my
husband--he, in high heaven, knows right well that never so much as
thought of mine has wronged him. Vile, evil-minded girl, as false as
frail!"
"That is sufficient, madam; almost enough, even if I were indeed the
thing you take me for." Here the girl paused to moisten her dry lips,
and catch her breath, of which passion had almost deprived her. "Now,
look you, I was wrong. I thought my Lady was not so lily-pure as the
world took her to be, and I was wrong. I have seen things with my own
eyes, and through the eyes of others, that might well entitle me to say:
'I still believe it,' I tell you, Lady Lisgard, I have proofs--or what
seemed to me to be so, a few minutes back--of the charge that has so
moved you, such as would amply justify my disbelief in your denial. But
I honestly avow that I was wrong."
"I thank you, Miss Rose Aynton, for your charity."
"Spare your scorn, madam. It is no charity that moves me; nay, far
from it. Convinced almost against my will, I own, by your unsupported
assertion--your mre 'No,' I have withdrawn an accusation for which I
have been patiently preparing evidence this long time--not, indeed, for
your hurt, but for my own safety and convenience, and hereby confess it
baseless and unjust. Now, on your part, I do beseech you, make amends to
me. You, too, have had your seeming proofs of my disgrace; you, too,
have heard and seen yourself, or through the eyes and ears of others,
certain"----
"Add not, lost, wretched girl," interposed my Lady, "deceit to sin!
All that is left you is to pray to Heaven for pardon, and to leave that
hospitable roof which you have disgraced."
Rose Aynton's gipsy face grew drawn and pale. She had aimed her blow,
and missed; the weapon in which she had put so much trust had proved
utterly good for nothing. All her schemes of the last few months were
rendered fruitless, and the discoveries to which she had attached such
vast importance, and which she had attained to by such mean arts, shewn
to be vain and futile. And now that she had humiliated herself by owning
this, and thrown herself at this woman's feet, she would not extend so
much as a finger-tip to help her.
"Lady Lisgard, as I hope for heaven," cried she in anguish, "I am
innocent of that with which you charge me; I am honest as yourself, or
Letty. Alas, you shudder, because I dare to compare myself with your
pure daughter; you think that I soil that name, too, by uttering it.
What shall I say--by what shall I swear, in order to make you believe
me?"
"I would to Heaven I could believe you, Rose," returned my Lady sadly,
touched in spite of herself by the girl's yearning appeal. "If you could
erase this damning blot upon my son's fair name, and give me back my
Walter--as I deemed him but an hour ago--I would be so grateful, girl,
that you should almost think I loved you."
"You would!" cried Rose with eagerness; then added bitterly: "But no;
you mean if I could say: 'Your son has never pressed his lips to these,
has never sworn to be mine, and mine alone.' But you would not thank
me for merely proving that in this, although he did it, he was not to
blame."
"What! Not to blame?"
"No, madam--for even for his sake, I cannot longer bear this burden of
undeserved shame. Walter Lisgard is my husband. We were married weeks
ago, when I went to London in the spring."
"Married, married!" gasped my Lady.
"Thank God for that! Far better to deceive me, boy, than this poor
girl. I never thought to say: 'I am glad you are my daughter-in-law,
Rose Aynton;' but I do say so now." She took both her hands in hers, and
gazed upon her downcast face, now overspread with blushes, and tinged
for once with genuine tenderness. "It moves you, does it, that I am
thankful to see the honour of my son preserved at some sacrifice of his
prospects. How little do you know me, girl! yet I am glad to move you
anyway. Rose, be a kind wife to him. I will not blame you for what has
happened, although I have much cause. I must blame him rather. Who can
wonder that you yielded when he said: 'Be mine.' So gentle and so loving
as he can be! Now, too, I see it all. When you refused Sir Richard in
the library, you were actually his brother's wife. Ah, Heaven, you must
not remain here longer--not a day. I shall write to Walter"----
"Nay, madam--mother," exclaimed Rose beseechingly, "I pray you let
me write. I have broken my plighted word, and disobeyed my husband's
bidding in revealing this. To please him, I had resolved to defend
myself this morning as I best might, by returning thrust for thrust,
without using this shield--my innocence--at all. But your bitter
words--a shower of barbed darts--drove me behind it. He will be very
wrath with me indeed, madam; but far worse if the news comes from you.
He has much just now to make him anxious too."
"Indeed," replied my Lady hastily. "How is it, then, that I have heard
nothing of it? But I forgot; it is you who have his secrets now. Yes,
you shall write, not I. Tell him that I am sorry--sorry that he should
have deceived me above all; but that I forgive him freely. He knows
that, however, right well. He must not come back to Mirk until he hears
from me; and you, Rose, you must join him without delay. Every member
of this household must learn at once that you are Walter's wife; but not
till you have gone--for Richard's sake." My Lady's thoughts, as always,
were for others; even when this great blow had well-nigh stunned her,
she did not permit herself the luxury of selfish grief. She was already
busy with schemes for the benefit of her erring boy; how to contrive and
where to save without prejudice to Sir Richard's interests (for that
must be now avoided above everything) so that a respectable allowance
might be meted out to the young couple. She could not respect, and far
less love the girl who had become her Walter's wife in so clandestine
a manner; but still she was his wife, and therefore, in her eyes, a
something precious. Then, bad as matters were, they might have been far
worse; she had fully expected that they were so; and she felt in some
sort grateful to accept this product of rashness and deceit in place
of downright shame. Moreover, she foresaw in her own mind, for ever
dwelling on such contingencies, that out of this evil a certain good
might come, in case of that terrible misfortune befalling her, compared
with which this present sorrow was as the prick of a pin's point.
Rose, upon her part, had certainly cause for congratulation upon the
result of this interview. Although her weapon of offence had failed
her--and she was genuinely convinced of the groundlessness of her late
suspicions concerning Lady Lisgard--she had found in her mother-in-law
a most generous adversary, and one certainly far more forgiving than she
deserved. Even the worst of us, I conclude, are not bad at all times,
and when my Lady, as they parted, touched her brow with her pale lips,
and murmured once more: "Be a kind wife to him, Rose," that young woman
mustered an honest tear or two--of which articles, to do her justice,
she did not keep, like some women, a constant supply on hand for social
emergencies.
Not until she regained her own room did she begin to think that she had
been unnecessarily humble, and had weakly suffered herself to be moved
by the show of forgiveness and good-will which my Lady had doubtless put
on for her own purposes. However, the confession had been made, and
upon the whole, most satisfactorily got over, the thought of which had
oppressed her of late more than she cared to own, and made her bitter
against her mother-in-law, as people generally feel towards those whom
they are conscious of having wronged. And now there was that letter to
write to Walter, which we have seen him peruse with such disfavour at
his hotel in Town, acquainting him with her premature avowal of their
common secret; and many a line of dexterous excuse she wove, and many a
line of affectionate pleading, only to be torn up and recomposed again
and again; for there was one person in the world beside herself whom
Rose loved dearly, and yet of whom she stood in deepest awe; and he whom
she both loved and feared with all the strength of her energetic nature,
was her husband--Walter Lisgard.
CHAPTER X. NO LETTERS.
|UPON the morning after the interview between Rose and Lady Lisgard, the
latter again sent down Mistress Forest for the post-bag, and was once
more disappointed at receiving no news from Arthur Haldane; not only did
the interval of twenty-four hours make this matter additionally serious,
and increase her former apprehensions that he had not received her
telegram, and might find some means of forwarding Derrick's letter to
himself--since it had certainly not come back to the Lisgard Arms; but
there was a still graver cause for anxiety in the fact that Mary Forest
also received no reply from Ralph to that rejection so decidedly yet
courteously composed by her mistress, with the view of taking away all
hope, and at the same time of leaving as little sting of anger as was
possible. Lady Lisgard would have almost preferred to have received
from this man a declaration of open warfare--an expressed resolution of
carrying away Mary as his wife, in spite of all obstacles--rather than
this menacing No Answer. Contemptuous silence was not at all the natural
line for one of his violent character to take, if he had decided to
treat her waiting-woman's letter as final. He was more likely in that
case to have penned a tornado of invective, and bidden both mistress and
maid to have gone to the devil. It seemed only too probable, then, that
he was determined--as he had threatened--to take no denial; and that he
would return in person, sooner or later, to Mirk, to prosecute his suit.
My Lady made certain preparations for that extremity--nay, for the worst
that could possibly arise--chief among which was the-composition of a
very long and carefully-conned epistle to her eldest son, that she put
by in her desk undated and unsealed, so that additions could be made to
it at pleasure. Then she waited in agonies of suspense day after day;
and yet no letter came for her maid from Ralph, or for herself from
Arthur Haldane. Moreover, although, in her absorbing anxiety about the
more serious subject, this affected my Lady far less than it did
Rose, no communication came from Walter in answer to her long and
justificatory letter, acquainting him with the disclosure of their
marriage. Our readers are aware that this last circumstance was simply
due to the fact, that it was reposing in the "address-box" of the Turf
Hotel, until such time as it caught the eye of the overworked waiter,
and was carried over with apologies to Walter's lodgings, whither he
had given orders that anything addressed to him should be conveyed
forthwith. But he had not particularly expected a letter from that
quarter--or, at all events, felt very anxious to get it--for nobody but
Rose would have written to him to the Turf Hotel, all others at Mirk
and elsewhere believing him to be at Canterbury with his regiment,
whence all communications were forwarded to him to his London lodgings.
Thus, from the very deceit to which she had lent herself--to her
peculiar information as to his movements--was this failure of Rose's
letter to reach her husband owing. During this protracted interval, she
suffered agonies of suspense, of mortification, and even of fear. It was
wormwood to have to say to her mother-in-law every morning: "He has
not written yet," and thereby to confess that Walter treated with
indifference the embarrassing position in which she was now placed at
Mirk Abbey; moreover, she surmised that her husband was too much enraged
with her disobedience in betraying their secret, to write at all.
His wife knew--although few others did--that Master Walter was capable
of being "put out" to a very considerable! extent. His very marriage
with herself--although she fortunately did not know that--had been
mainly owing to his impatience of opposition, and pique against his
elder brother. Doubtless propinquity and opportunities of flirtation
with a beautiful and accomplished girl, not by any means lavish of her
smiles, but whose devotion to himself had been almost that of a slave
for her master, had carried the handsome captain towards the gulf of
matrimony; but it was the desire to thwart Sir Richard--who, his jealous
eye perceived, was falling seriously in love with Rose long before she
saw it--which was the final cause of his rash act. He eagerly snatched
at an occasion at once of self-gratification, and of humiliating his
proud and arrogant brother. He was delighted to let him know that
neither his wealth nor his title could weigh in the balance of a woman's
favour against the gifts and graces which it was his habit to depreciate
or ignore. We have said that he discovered Sir Richard's passion even
before the object of it; but Rose's subtle brain was already preoccupied
with himself. To give that scheming beauty her due, I think that even
had she not been already Walter's wife, she would not have exchanged him
for the baronet, at the period when he made her that dazzling offer in
the Library. She felt that she had let slip a splendid prize, and was
proportionally angry with Sir Richard, whose backwardness and hauteur
had prevented her from recognising the possibility of its falling to
her lot; but the feeling of disappointment was but transient; she was
a bride of only a few weeks, and to get disenchanted of one like Walter
Lisgard is a long process even for a wife. By this time, however, though
she idolised him, still Rose had learned to fear him; and absolutely
dared not pen another letter to inquire the reason of his silence.
Of those who waited, sick at heart, for the coming of the postman every
morning, Lady Lisgard, therefore, was the first to lose patience. She
wrote to Arthur Haldane a few urgent lines, requesting his immediate
presence at Mirk "upon private and particular business and within an
hour of their receipt he took the train, and appeared in person at the
Abbey. My Lady had decided to consult him, in preference to his
father, respecting the arrangements necessary to be made for the future
maintenance of Walter and his wife, since it would be very unwise to
make so much importance of the matter concerning Derrick, about which
she was in reality vastly more concerned, and burned to know the truth.
"What is the matter, ma mre!" inquired he tenderly, when, not without
the exercise of some address--for Sir Richard was always hospitable, and
(especially in the absence of his brother) both gracious and attentive
to all guests--Arthur and my Lady had managed to get an hour to
themselves in the boudoir. "You look very pale and anxious."
"Yes, Arthur, I have enough to make me so. Walter has secretly made Rose
Aynton his wife. Ah! you pity me, I see, and perhaps him also. Do not
condole with me, however. I have sent for you hither to help me to make
the best-----Alas, alas, you would not have believed it of my Walter,
would you?" And my Lady, touched by the sympathising look and manner of
the honest young fellow, burst into the first "good cry" which she had
permitted to herself since the calamity had been discovered; for when
confiding the circumstance to Letty, it had been her duty to bear up,
and when alone, a still more serious anxiety consumed her. Even now, her
emotion, though violent, was soon over, and the indulgence in it seemed
to have done her good. "Pardon me, Arthur," said she, with one of her
old smiles; "I won't be foolish any more."
And then, after narrating matters with which we are acquainted, she laid
before him, as concisely as she could, what funds at her own disposal
could be made available to form an income for the young couple, in
addition to the interest which Walter's fortune of five thousand pounds
or so, into the possession of which he would come in some eighteen
months, would yield. She little knew that on that very night--for it was
the eve of the Derby Day--the unworthy boy, for whom she was making
such sacrifices, was about to risk and lose more than a third of his
patrimony, and that upon the next day the remainder was doomed to go,
and much more with it.
"But this will pinch you, ma mere," reasoned Arthur kindly, "and
narrow your own already somewhat scanty revenue sadly. Sir Richard will
come into a very fine rent-roll in June, beside thousands----"
"But can we ask him to help Walter and his wife? And could Walter take
it, even if his brother were generous enough to offer it?"
"Sir Richard is quite capable of such magnanimity, ma mere, unless
I am much mistaken in his character. He would not like to see his
brother--even were he but a Lisgard, let alone his so near kith and
kin--in a position that would be discreditable to the family; while if
one has really loved a woman, one surely does not wish to see her poor
and struggling, simply because she has preferred some one else. As for
Walter's accepting the help which his brother can so well spare--it may
be a little bitter--but, in my opinion, that would be far preferable to
receiving what would impoverish his mother. The arrangements you propose
would leave you but three hundred pounds a year."
"Yes," answered my Lady hastily, "I require that for a purpose, else
half the sum would easily suffice my present needs."
"It would do nothing of the sort, ma mre. Come, let us be reasonable.
If you will leave this matter in my hands, I will endeavour to be the
mediator between your sons. Sir Richard has an honest regard for me, I
think, and Walter also, when he is himself."
"Poor Walter!" murmured my Lady sighing.
"Yes, he is to be pitied," answered the other drily; "but also, between
ourselves--although I shall endeavour, after my lawyer instincts, to
make it appear otherwise to his brother--to be somewhat blamed, ma
mre. Since, then, I am prepared, under the cloak of arbitrator, to be
the partisan of your darling----Yes, they are both your darlings, Lady
Lisgard, I know, but with a difference."
"Walter is in trouble," urged my Lady pitifully.
"Yes, that is the reason, of course. However, will you put the case
unreservedly in my own hands? for if so, although it is not an easy
task, I will do my best to make your sons shake hands."
"There is none like you, Arthur, none. Heaven bless you and reward you!"
"There may be none like me, ma mere, but there are also, I hope, many
people a great deal better. And now that we have done with this matter
for the present, may I ask, Why letters are directed to another person,
under care to me, which I am at the same time directed by telegram to
put behind the fire?"
"Oh, you got that telegram, did you?" said my Lady quietly. "Mary Forest
entreated me so to send it. The fact was, she accepted that person by
letter---what was his name?--of whom we spoke together some time ago at
the Watersmeet; but afterwards, persuaded by me (acting in accordance
with your suggestion, you remember), she decided to refuse him. But the
first letter was unfortunately posted before the second was written; and
the postmistress at Dalwynch positively refused to give it up, although
I drove over there myself to request it."
"Well, upon my life, ma mre, but you're a bold woman," exclaimed the
young lawyer laughing. "Why, of course, she wouldn't give it up. She
would be stealing the property of the Postmaster-general if she had done
so, and you would be the receiver with the guiltiest knowledge."
"Well, at all events, she did not," pursued my Lady simply. "She would
do nothing beyond directing the envelope afresh to your address."
"Honest creature!" interrupted Arthur grimly.
"Under these circumstances, I telegraphed to you, knowing that you would
be good enough to destroy the letter directly it reached you."
"Yes, ma mere, and I did so," returned Arthur gravely; "but I feared
it was not right, and now that you have told me this, I know that it was
wrong. You may have had your reasons, dear Lady Lisgard, and doubtless
very urgent ones, to wish the destruction of those letters."
"Those letters!" exclaimed my Lady.
"Yes, I am certain, of course, that you intended no harm to any one, and
that what you did was in ignorance of the law; but so suspicious was I
of your having transgressed it--and at the same time, perhaps, a
little annoyed that you should have chosen me, Lady Lisgard, for your
instrument in such a matter--that I purposely omitted to communicate
with you, to put in writing any evidence whatsoever of that
transaction."
"Yes, yes," said my Lady hastily, and taking no notice of the young
man's evident annoyance. "But you speak of letters. There was only
one letter directed to Pump Court."
"There were two, Lady Lisgard, and both addressed in the same
handwriting. The words, Turf Hotel, Piccadilly, were crossed out also,
in each case, I remember, in red ink. It was the postmistress who did
it, I have no doubt. If you led her to imagine that that was the wrong
address in the one instance, she naturally imagined it to be so in the
other, and probably made the alteration in all good faith."
"Great Heaven, and so it must have been!" exclaimed my Lady, clasping
her hands. "O Arthur, this mischance--if my misconduct does indeed
deserve punishment, has brought, I fear, a very harsh and bitter
one--that is on Mary. The second letter should have reached the
person to whom it was addressed without fail. He will now have heard
nothing--this Derrick; and he will take the woman's silence for consent.
O Arthur, Arthur, you little know what bad news this is."
"I can see, ma mre, that it vexes you," answered the young man
kindly; "and that is evil enough for me to know. Some sorrows are
best kept to one's self, I think. Now, look you, this Mr Derrick will
certainly, being a sporting-man, be in town to-morrow night. He will not
have left his hotel before the Derby is over. Now, I will go and seek
him out to-morrow with the letter in my hand that Mary shall re-write.
We have only but a very little time, remember."
"Dear Arthur, counsellor, and friend, and son in one, what comfort do
you not give me in all straits!" She rose and offered him her pale
but comely cheek, which the young man touched with reverent lips; then
holding her hand in his, he said in a firm voice: "And now, ma mre,
even that is not fee enough for such an avaricious lawyer as I am. I
have promised myself a talk with Letty."
"Do so, and Heaven bless you, my dear boy--ay, bless you both,"
continued my Lady, when he had left the room, "for you would take her
for your wife even though you knew what I know of her unhappy birth. I
have almost a mind to tell him; but then, with his stern notions of what
is right--although, Heaven knows, I wrong no one by this reticence--he
might---- 'Some sorrows are best kept to one's self, I think,' said
he. And whether he suspects something amiss, and meant the words for my
particular ear or not, it is sound advice. Sufficient for the day is the
evil thereof. If I were always to be thinking of the morrow, I should
soon go mad."
CHAPTER XI. MR ARTHUR HALDANE MAKES HIMSELF USEFUL.
|SOME writers are very fond of describing interviews between betrothed
persons, and there are undoubtedly readers who take a pleasure in
reading such delicate details; and yet it seems strange that this should
be so, with respect to the mre description of what in real life is
undoubtedly tame and stupid to the looker-on; for what can be duller,
or more uninteresting, except to one another, than "an engaged couple."
With what meaningless emphasis they smile; what mysterious secrets
(known to every adult in the company) they interchange; and how they go
blindly feeling after one another's hands under the table, whenever
the opportunity offers. I think it even profane to mention such tender
mysteries. Arthur Haldane and Letty Lisgard were not indeed a betrothed
couple when they met upon the present occasion, but they became so
before they parted. Their subject of conversation being the marriage
of somebody else, it naturally enough strayed to their own. "I am not a
good match for you, Letty, just at present," said the young man frankly,
during a lucid interval, "but I do not despair of removing the disparity
of fortune. I am getting on in my profession better than I could have
hoped for."
"I don't see why 'disparity' of any sort, dear Arthur, should affect
persons who really love one another."
"That's my own sweet Letty," replied the other (relapsing). "But then
your family--no exertions of mine can procure for me such a pedigree as
you can boast of."
"That is a matter of genuine congratulation, Arthur. Dear Richard often
makes me wish that there were no such things as ancestors. I suppose it
is a dreadful heresy, but it seems to me so strange that people are not
taken for what they are let their birth be what it will."
"My Rose of Radicals!" exclaimed the young man with admiration; "your
words deserve to be written in letters of gold." And so saying, he took
out his pocket-book, and, in spite of her opposition, transcribed them
then and there.
"Of what possible good can that be, you dear foolish fellow?"
"I cannot say for certain, Letty," answered he gravely. "But keep a
thing long enough, and its use will come, folks say."
Mr Arthur Haldane had, as we are aware, some other interviews awaiting
him, less agreeable than the one on hand, which perhaps may account for
his prolonging it to an inordinate length. There was no difference of
opinion expressed in this one; and what is unusual in arguments between
the sexes, the lady had not the last word at parting. Strictly speaking,
neither had it. The farewell of each expired almost at the same
instant, and was not breathed into the ear at all: I say "almost"
advisedly, and from a desire to be accurate, for if each imprints a kiss
upon the other's cheek, they cannot do it quite coincidently; and it
is certain, if the statistics of the matter could be collected, that
nine engaged couples (for, of course, no couple does it who are not
engaged) out of every ten do salute one another in that way, and not
press "lip to lip," as the poets make out; in fact, it requires a
particular and uniform conformation of nose--both must be "snubs"--to
render the thing practicable.
Sir Richard, whom we have been compelled occasionally to represent in
an unfavourable light, did not fall short, in his interview with
Arthur Haldane, of the high estimate which the latter had formed of his
chivalric nature; or perhaps it was through his overweening pride,
that could not permit the woman upon whom his affections had once
condescended to rest, to be inconvenienced by narrow circumstances; but,
actuated by whatever motive, his behaviour towards the rash young couple
was liberal in the extreme. He accepted very willingly the explanation,
given by the young lawyer with great tact, of his refusal by Rose
Aynton. No utterance was given to the remark, that if he had pressed his
suit a little earlier, doubtless no thought of his younger brother would
have entered the girl's brain; but the suggestion was, somehow or other,
delicately conveyed, and in that Gilead there was balm. Strange as
it may appear, the object of his rejected suit seemed to have won
forgiveness not only for herself, but for her husband, to whose faults
he had heretofore shewn himself so unfraternally alive. He certainty did
not request Arthur to offer his congratulations to the young Benedict;
but he sent by him a conciliatory message, and a special request that
Captain and Mrs Lisgard would not fail to visit the Abbey upon the
occasion of the approaching fte. The period of his own coming of
age would be a very fitting one for the newly-married pair to introduce
themselves to the people of the country, while their presence at such a
time would evidence that there was no family breach. In all this,
there was doubtless a leaven of selfishness; but there was considerable
magnanimity also, and the manner in which the baronet spoke of Rose
herself would have done honour to Bayard. In this matter, it must be
even conceded that he shewed more nobility of spirit than the ladies of
his household. His mother had forgiven the girl, after a fashion, it is
true; but her feelings towards her were anything but genial. One's heart
cannot be made to yearn towards a sly and deceitful young person, just
because she happens to be one's daughter-in-law. Her pity for Walter was
great, but it did not beget Love for her.
With Letty, again, Rose stood even lower, or perhaps seemed to do
so, from the higher eminence which she had previously occupied in the
affections of her school-friend. A young lady who has sworn an eternal
friendship, does not relish the discovery that the other party to that
solemn transaction has been making a fool of her under her own roof for
months; nay, has been systematically deceiving her upon a matter
mutual confidences concerning which form the very basis of such
compacts--namely, the Beloved Object. Young men do not encourage one
another to communicate their honest love-secrets, although some are
boastful enough of their conquests over the sex, where there is no
pretence of the heart being concerned; but with young ladies, this sort
of information is the most prized of all. There is a tacit, if not an
expressed understanding between female friends, that the first genuine
"attachment" formed by either shall at once be revealed to the other.
The expectation of that tender avowal is what is uppermost in their
minds whenever they meet; and when it has been made, what an endless
subject of sympathy does the unconscious swain become between these
devoted young persons! How the qualities of his mind are canvassed, and
the colour of his hair; how his religious principles are eulogised, and
also his small feet; and how, in short, the Betrothed and her faithful
Confidante construct a mental and physical ideal for Jones, out of what
they have read of the Admirable Crichton and the Apollo Belvedere. Betty
Lisgard was as good a girl--in my opinion--as ever drew breath; but she
was human, and when she kissed Rose the first time after she learned she
had become her sister, it was by no means the impassioned salute which
it had used to be, nor had her "my dear," although delivered with
emphasis, at all the genuine ring.
As for the other females at the Abbey, it was fortunate for Rose that
she had not to apply to them for a character; for although Mistress
Forest knew her place better than to circulate scandal, Miss Anne Rees,
no longer restrained by terror of the constabulary, indemnified herself
for previous reticence, by favouring her fellow-servants with some very
curious details indeed with respect to Mrs Walter Lisgard. My Lady's
proposal, that Rose should take advantage of Mr Arthur Haldane's
escort on the morrow to her aunt's house, until she should receive her
husband's directions as to her future place of abode, was, I think, very
generally welcomed, and felt to be a relief by the whole house.
During the long railway journey to town, however, she made herself
agreeable enough to her companion, as she was well able to do, when so
disposed, to all his sex.
The young barrister was prudent and sagacious beyond his years, and what
he knew of the lady's behaviour, did not certainly prepossess him in
her favour; but, nevertheless, he was obliged to confess to himself
(although he omitted to do so to Letty) that Mrs Walter Lisgard was a
very charming person. It is undeniable that a married woman may make
herself twice as pleasant, for any short interval, like a railway
journey, as any single one can do; she is not afraid of being considered
too forward, or of laying herself out to captivate; while, if you are a
bachelor with whose tendresse for any fair one she is acquainted, she
will take you under her patronage, notwithstanding that you may be twice
her age, and so sympathise with you, and identify herself with your
absent intended, that you are half inclined to squeeze her hand, and
cover it with kisses.
Mr Arthur Haldane had much too judicial a mind to give way to any
impulse of that kind, but it was very nice to hear Rose eulogise her
"darling Letty," and protest that the man who married her would find
himself united with an angel. He quite forgot, under this soothing
treatment, that his impression on leaving the Abbey was, that the two
young ladies were not very good friends; nor did it occur to him at all
that this privilege of matronly talk was being exercised by a bride
not two months wedded, and whose surreptitious marriage had only been
discovered about a week ago. When they had reached London, and were
approaching her aunt's residence in the late afternoon, they found
themselves suddenly in a broad stream of vehicles, for the most part
furnished with four horses, but very unlike the usual spick-and-span
London equipages, being covered with white dust, and bearing traces of
recent rapid travel.
"I quite forgot it was the Derby Day," exclaimed Arthur: "these are
the gentlemen of the road, and I daresay your husband is among them."
Rose turned quite pale, and leaning back in the cab, did not again
look out of window until they arrived at her aunt's door, where the two
companions parted very good friends indeed. Rose gave a little sigh
as she thanked him for his escort, which went--not indeed to the young
man's heart, but a good way too.
"I hope Master Walter does not ill-treat that poor girl," soliloquised
Arthur as he drove away; "but I am almost certain that she s afraid of
him."
London after the Derby is more like Pandemonium even than on the night
before; the winners are wild with joy, and inclined for any sort of
dissipation; the losers also crave for the Circean cup, that they may
temporarily forget their misfortunes. With the unusual roar of wheel and
hoof in the streets, there mixes a still more unusual shouting; and from
the open windows of places of entertainment, there streams forth the
tangled talk which is confined within doors at other times. Before
Arthur could reach the Turf Hotel, he learned from these sources,
without further inquiry, that The King had won the race, in
consequence of some mischance having happened to the jockey of
Menelaus. He knew, therefore, that Walter Lisgard had lost money.
Still, when upon reaching his lodging he first set eyes upon the young
dragoon, moodily stretched upon the sofa, with eyes staring straight
before him, and a face as pale as the tablecloth, on which stood an
untasted meal, he was astonished and shocked. For the moment--such a
rigidity was there about those exquisite features--Arthur thought with a
shudder that he was dead. Even after he entered the room, lit only from
the glaring street, not a limb stirred, not a muscle moved to mark any
consciousness of his presence; but when he exclaimed: "Walter! what's
the matter, man?" the figure leapt up with a cry of pleasure, and took
both his hands in his.
"I am glad to see you, Arthur," cried he.
"This is very kind of you, and I do not deserve it. I thought it was
that infernal scoundrel Derrick."
"He is not here, then?"
"No; he may have come and gone, for all I know, for I believe I have
been in a sort of nightmare; only it was a horse that caused it.
Derrick's partner--or Derrick himself, for what I know--sold the race.
I know what you are going to say, that you always told me how it would
be"----
"No, indeed, Walter," interrupted Arthur kindly. "I am not come hither
to reproach you. I am only the bearer of good news."
"I should like to hear some of that," said the other bitterly. "Where
is it? Have you brought a loaded pistol with you? That would be the most
friendly action you could do me just now, I believe."
"Walter, you should not talk like that," answered Arthur very gravely,
for there was a look in his friend's eyes which seemed to harmonise
only too well with his despairing words. "When we kill ourselves so
philosophically, we forget how we wound others by that selfish act.
Think of your mother, lad."
"Yes. She would be sorry, would she not?"
"It would break her heart, Walter; that's all. And besides, you have
a wife now--yes, we all know it, and you're both forgiven--and why you
have not written to her in answer to the letter she wrote you, none of
us can imagine."
"I only got it this very day," groaned Walter. "Am I in a fit state to
write upon business, think you?"
"Business!" echoed Arthur contemptuously; "you're in a fit state to take
a cab to Mayfair, and ask your poor wife's pardon, I brought her up to
her aunt's house today myself."
"That's well," observed Walter reflectively; "for between you and me,
Arthur Haldane"----
"Well, what?" exclaimed the barrister impatiently.
"Why, I think she'd better stay at her aunt's house altogether. The fact
is, I've got no money to keep her."
"We know all about that, man"----
"The devil you do!" ejaculated Walter grimly; "then bad news must indeed
fly apace. Look here, Haldane--I've lost everything. All that I have
at present; all that I was to have when I came of age; all that I can
expect from any human being who is fool enough to leave me anything in
time to come. I am a beggar, and worse than that, for I am a defaulter,
and shall be proclaimed as such in a few days. That is the whole state
of the case. Now, do you not think that the kindest office which a
friend could do me, would be to help me with the means of blowing out,
what would be in another man, his brains? For not only do I recognise
myself a scoundrel, but as a senseless dolt and idiot, a fool of the
first quality, and a"----
"You must owe, then, near seven thousand pounds," interrupted Arthur,
with something like a groan.
"Just about that, so far as I have dared to look the thing in the face;
all lost within twenty-four hours--most of it within three minutes."
"We must keep this from your mother somehow, Walter. She has been sadly
tried, and I doubt whether she could bear it."
"She must know it sooner or later, man, even if she doesn't read it in
the papers. When your Turf gentry do not get paid, they make a noise
about it, you see, that being all they can do. I've a precious good mind
to take myself off to Cariboo--that's where this fellow Derrick made his
money--the climate's good, and with a little capital, one may do a good
deal. Why should I not go there, and never let them have a penny? The
law looks upon it as a swindle, you know that well enough; and it
was a swindle, by Jove! Come, you 're a barrister, Haldane; now, what
do you say about it?"
"No, Walter, I cannot advise you to act in that manner, and I am sure
you did not propose it seriously yourself."
"O no, certainly not; I was only having a bit of fun," rejoined the
other bitterly. "I am just in the humour for joking now, and can't
resist it. Thousand devils! would you have me go to the workhouse, man,
or where?"
"Nothing of that sort is at all necessary, Walter," answered the other
quietly. "Of course, I was not prepared for this very unfortunate
position of affairs; I had brought news that, through, I must say, the
very generous behaviour of your elder brother, your income as a married
man would in future be a very tolerable one; it has been made up to
at least double what the interest of the sum you have lost would have
produced. Thus, in addition to your pay, you would have had about six
hundred a year, besides whatever your wife's aunt might think proper
to allow her. Your mother, on the other hand, undertakes, if you should
scruple to accept this kindness at Sir Richard's hands"----
"Scruple? Certainly not," ejaculated Walter angrily. "I confess that I
did not think my brother would have had so much proper feeling, and I
am much obliged to him, of course; but, after all, he has only done his
duty. What is three hundred a year out of the Lisgard rent-roll?"
"Still, he was not obliged to do it," observed Arthur drily.
"That is true; and, of course, you take the lawyer's view of it.
Moreover, when he comes to hear of these debts, perhaps his Serene
Highness may think proper to withdraw his gracious assistance."
"You do him very wrong, Walter," answered Arthur with warmth. "Your
trouble makes you say things you ought to be ashamed of--yes, ashamed
of. Your brother, with all his faults, is incapable of committing such
an act of cruelty. He is quite willing that you should both return to
Mirk as soon as you please, but particularly that you should be present
at his Coming of Age, which I am sure you will not fail to be. But if
you will take my advice, you will not make your position known at Mirk,
for, as I have said before, your mother has had enough to trouble her.
You must let your sporting friends understand it, however, and we must
make the best arrangements we can for your paying your debts within
a year; and for the future, till something turns up, instead of six
hundred per annum, you must manage to do on three. Your wife, I am sure,
is a most sensible young lady, and will easily perceive the necessity
for economy."
"Thank you," answered the dragoon coldly. "Perhaps you would like to run
down to Canterbury, and choose our lodging for us; or do you think we
ought to be content to live in barracks? I know that there is a great
temptation to insult a man when he is down; but for giving unpalatable
advice in an offensive manner, I do not know your equal, Mr Arthur
Haldane."
"Well, Walter, I have said what I thought right, and I do not intend to
quarrel with you. I should wish, on the contrary, to remain your friend,
if it were only for your dear mother's sake"----
"And somebody else's," interrupted the captain with a sneer.
"Yes; for your sister Letty's, Walter; I frankly own that. Come, give
us your hand, man.--Well, another time, then, when you are more like
yourself.--But before I go, I want to find this man Derrick, for I have
a letter for him of importance from Mistress Forest."
"You had better ask as you go down stairs, Mr Haldane; I know nothing
about him." And with that, Captain Walter Lisgard deliberately turned
his back upon his visitor, and looked gloomily out of the window;
while his white hand stroked his silken moustaches as though it were a
pumice-stone, and it was his intention to stroke them off.
Arthur made his inquiry of the servant who opened the hall-door to let
him out.
"Mr Derrick--if that was the gentleman with the large beard--had come
and gone within the last quarter of an hour, while he (Haldane) had been
talking with the other gentleman up stairs. He had called for his bill,
and paid it, and packed his portmanteau, and there it was in the passage
at the present moment."
"Then he must come back for that," exclaimed Arthur eagerly.
"No. He had left directions that it was to be sent on to him in a week
or so to some place in the South. He had said that he should be walking,
and therefore would not be there himself for several days. He had taken
a knapsack with him as for a regular tour. He was a strange gentleman
altogether."
Arthur Haldane stooped down, and read the address on the
portmanteau--Mr R. Derrick, Coveton; then stepped very thoughtfully
into the roaring street. "I don't know exactly why, and I certainly have
no desire to know," muttered the young barrister to himself; "but of
all the bad news I have learned to-night, I fear ma mre will consider
this the worst. Why the deuce should this fellow be going to Coveton,
of all places least calculated to attract such a scampish vagabond?
Coveton, Coveton--yes, that is the place where my Lady came ashore from
the wreck of the North Star."
CHAPTER XII. THE LETTER FROM PARIS.
|IT is the morning after the Derby Day, and Sir Richard, who has never
had a shilling upon that national event, yet reads with interest the
prose-poem upon the subject in the Times, over the breakfast-table,
and even favours Letty--which is so unusual a piece of graciousness,
that it almost suggests the idea of making amends for something--with
extracts from the same, aloud. He and his sister are alone at the
morning meal, for my Lady, as is often the case now, has had her tea
and dry toast sent up to her in her own room, as also a couple of
letters--one from Arthur Haldane, and one with the Paris post-mark, and
in a foreign hand.
"Lord Stonart is said to have netted forty thousand pounds: just think
of that, Letty."
"Yes, Richard; but then think of the poor people that lost it."
"Poor people should not bet," returned the baronet severely. "I am sorry
for Mr Chifney, since, if he had not quarrelled with his Lordship, the
winner would have come out of his stables. As it was, he very nearly
accomplished it with that French horse Menclaus--a success which I
should, as an Englishman, have much deplored."
"Dear me! was not that the horse in which Walter was so much
interested?"
"I am sure I don't know, Letty. I should think my brother had no money
to spare for the race-course, under present circumstances: he could
surely never be such a fool."
"Very likely not, Richard. I never said a word about his risking money;
I only said he was 'interested.'"
"Ah!" rejoined the baronet significantly, "I dare say;" and then
he began to whistle, as was not unusual with him when thoroughly
displeased. Presently, however, recollecting that this was not a
sociable sort of thing to do, Sir Richard abruptly observed: "Mamma had
a letter from Paris this morning, and in a foreign hand; I wonder who
her correspondent is. I do not think she has heard from abroad since
immediately after our poor father's death. Then I remember several of
her old French friends wrote to her."
"I hope it is no ill news of any kind, for I am getting quite anxious
about dear mamma, Richard. Ever since Christmas last, she has seemed to
get more and more depressed."
"I have only observed it lately," answered the baronet, rather stiffly;
"and I am sure we have not far to look for the reason.--By the by, there
was a letter for her from Arthur Haldane also."
"Oh! was there?" said Letty carelessly, but turning a lively pink. Then
after a short pause, during which the baronet resumed his paper: "If you
will not have another cup of coffee, Richard, I think I will go up and
see mamma."
At that moment, the door opened, and my Lady herself entered the room.
Her cheeks were ashy pale, but her eyes were beaming with excitement,
and the hand in which she held an open letter trembled as she spoke.
"Oh, I have got such good news, Richard!"
"What! from Arthur?" cried Letty. "Ah! I thought he would arrange
everything as it should be."
Sir Richard frowned, and seemed about to speak, but did not do so.
"Yes, I have heard from Arthur too," said my Lady; "and very
satisfactorily, although, perhaps, there may be matters which may
require my presence in town for a day or two."
"You may always command my services, mother: I can start at five
minutes' notice," said Sir Richard gravely.
"No, my dear hoy; if I have to go at all--which is not certain--I shall
certainly go alone, or rather with nobody but Mary. You will be full of
preparations for your fte, I know, for one only comes of age once in
one's lifetime; and besides, to tell you the truth, you would be of
no use at all." Here she kissed him tenderly, and pushed her fingers
through his brown curls lingeringly, as though she was already wishing
him farewell. "But the good news I speak of is a much more selfish
affair than you dream of. I have had a letter from my dear old friend,
Madame de Castellan, who used to be so good to me when I was no older
than you, Letty, at Dijon."
"I remember her," said Sir Richard. "She came to stay at the Abbey
when I was about nine, did she not, and took such a fancy to dear
old Belcomb? She said that she and I would marry so soon as I got old
enough, and set up an establishment in the little cottage. A charming
old lady, with snow-white hair, but a slight deficiency of teeth."
"Just so," answered my Lady. "She always vowed she would have nothing
false about her, as long as she lived, and she is alive now, and
apparently very hearty. But she has had some money losses, as well as
certain domestic misfortunes, which induce her to seek an entire change
of life. It is a most singular thing that you should have recollected
her passion for Belcomb, for it is about that very place that she has
written. She wishes to know whether she could be our tenant there, at
all events for the summer. The matter is in your hands, Richard, or will
be so in a week or two, but I confess I should like to have her for a
neighbour exceedingly."
"Then by all means write and say 'Come,'" cried the baronet; "and why
not let her have Belcomb rent free? I dare say she would not mind our
having our picnics there occasionally; and it is really no loss to me,
for I don't believe anybody but herself would dream of taking it, except
in the shooting season."
"Then that is arranged," answered my Lady joyfully. "I am to write by
return of post," she says ; "and if the letter says 'Yes,' that then we
may expect her any day. She will bring her own French maid; and I will
drive over to-day, and arrange about old Rachel and her husband, who, of
course, must be no losers, if they have to leave. That must be Madame's
own affair, if she is really to have the place for nothing. See how
affectionately the dear old lady writes, and what a capital hand,
considering her advanced age!"
"Yes, indeed," said Sir Richard, elevating his eyebrows: "only, to say
the truth, I am not good at French manuscript----"
"Although a master of that language, when in printed books," interrupted
Letty.
"Well, the fact is they didn't teach that sort of thing at Eton in my
time," answered the baronet frankly; "or, at all events, they didn't
teach me. However, French is not so bad as German, that I will say.
One can pronounce it without speaking from the pit of one's stomach."
"Yes, one can--after a fashion," laughed Letty a little scornfully; but
her elder brother seemed resolved to take all her bantering in good part
that morning, as the imperial lion will sometimes tolerate the gambols
of a companion kitten. "I don't think, however," she continued, "Madame
de Castellan, who comes from Paris, will quite understand you,
Richard.--How nicely she speaks of Mary, mamma. Why, how comes she to
know so much about her?"
"Why, when I went to Dijon, before my marriage, Mary Forest went with
me, you know, and remained there several years."
"Ah, yes, of course; I had forgotten."
"And when we were at the--the college," continued my Lady, with a slight
tinge of colour, "Madame took pity upon us both, being foreigners, and
was kind to us beyond all measure. Many a happy day have we passed
in her pretty chateau together; and indeed I think I owe my Parisian
pronunciation--of which you seem to make so much, Letty--at least as
much to Madame de Castellan as to my paid teachers. She never could
speak English, if you remember, Richard; everything she addressed to you
had to be translated."
"Dear me," answered the baronet hastily, "I don't like that. I hope
she has learned English since then. It places one in a very humiliating
position to be talked to in a language one does not understand; unless
you can treat the person as a savage, which, to say the truth, I always
feel inclined to do."
"Well, Richard," said my Lady smiling, "if I am not at your elbow when
Madame de Castellan calls, there will be always Letty here, who is
cunning in such tongue-fence, to protect you; but, as a matter of fact,
we shall see my poor old friend but very seldom. She is a good deal
broken, I fear, by time, and still more by trouble"--here my Lady's own
voice began to quaver a little--"and all she seems to desire is quiet
and seclusion, before her day of rest at last shall dawn."
"She will be very welcome," answered Sir Richard tenderly. "I hope that
you will cause everything for her comfort to be looked to at Belcomb,
and I will again repeat my orders to Rinkel that the place is to be kept
quite free from trespassers."
He rose and kissed his mother, then, as he left the room, delayed with
his fingers on the door-handle, saying: "Have Walter and--and his wife
consented to be present at my Coming of Age?"
"Certainly, dear Richard: they will both be very pleased to come--nay,
Arthur thinks that they may return to the Abbey immediately. It is
scarcely worth while for them to take a house, or rather lodgings, at
Canterbury, since they are to be here so soon. Walter has leave now, it
seems, and there will be no difficulty in getting it prolonged almost
indefinitely: he can do anything he likes with his colonel, you know, as
indeed"----
"Exactly," interrupted Sir Richard drily. "Then I suppose they will be
back in a few days." And with that he placed the door between himself
and the threatened eulogy upon Master Walter.
"Was there any particular message for me, mamma?" inquired Letty
demurely.
"From Walter? No, dear. He sent his love to us all; but of course he
feels a little embarrassed, and perhaps scarcely understands that he has
been forgiven. Oh, I forgot: you meant was there any particular message
from Arthur Haldane, you exacting little puss! Why, he only left us
yesterday morning! But don't be vexed, my darling. You have won the love
of a man who knows your worth almost as well as I do. He may not be so
brilliant or so handsome as our darling Walter--and indeed who is?--but
I must say he has shewn much better taste in choosing a wife. He has
both wisdom and goodness, my darling child, and I firmly believe your
future happiness is assured."
"Yes, dearest mother, I do believe it; but"----Here Letty's eyes began
not only to sparkle, but to distil pearls and diamonds in the most
lavish and apparently uncalled-for profusion.
"Why, what is the matter now, my love?" inquired my Lady.
"Nothing, mamma--nothing at least that I should have thought it worth
while to tell you, had I not been overcome by your kind words. I know
you have got troubles enough of your own; I did not mean to tell you,
indeed I did not; I tried to forget it myself. Only last night, after
you had gone to bed, Richard sat up with me talking about his future,
and it seems he has made some plan for mine. He spoke of Mr Charles Vane
as a person he would like to have for a brother-in-law. He bade me be
particularly civil to him at the coming fte; and when I said that
I did not very much care about Mr Vane--and, in fact, that I had
already---- O mamma, Richard said some very cruel things. He reminded
me that one member of the family had already made a disreputable
marriage"----
"That was an ungenerous speech, and very unlike my Richard," interposed
my Lady with emphasis. "Why, he would have married Rose himself."
"So I have sometimes thought," replied Letty simply: "but to do him
justice, I think he was referring to the clandestine character of the
marriage rather than to the match itself. However, when he used the word
disreputable in connection with Arthur Haldane, he made me very angry,
I own. I told him that Arthur was worth all the Vanes that had ever been
born, whether there might have been nineteen generations of them (as he
boasted) or a hundred and ninety. And I am afraid, dear mamma, that
I snapped my fingers, and said I did not care that, when he accused
dearest Arthur of not having a great-grandfather. At all events, Richard
stalked out of the drawing-room vastly offended; and although he has
been endeavouring to be extra civil to me this morning, I know that it
is only that he may again introduce the very objectionable subject of
Mr Charles Vane; and when I say 'No' with decision, as of course I shall
do, I fear that he may take it upon himself to write to Arthur; and
then, dearest mother, the Haldanes are so proud, you know, that I don't
know what may happen."
Strange as it may seem, there had flitted across my Lady's face during
this recital a look of something like Relief--for it surely could not
have been Satisfaction--but it speedily gave place to that expression of
distress that had become only too habitual to her once serene and comely
features. Perhaps, accustomed to mischance as she now was, she had
expected even more unwelcome news, and had felt momentarily thankful
matters were no worse; but now all was gloom again.
"You were quite right to tell me this, Letty, even though it does give
me a new cause for grief. If I know Arthur Haldane, he will not desert
his betrothed wife on account of any slight that may be put upon him by
any other human being. You may be quite at ease about that, I am very
sure. But these dissensions and disagreements among my own children--I
know it is not your fault, dear Letty--but I feel that I cannot bear up
under them. You will not have me with you here much longer."
"O mamma--dear, dear mamma, how selfish it was of me thus to afflict
you further. But don't, don't talk like that. What should we do without
you--you the sole bond that unites your boys together: and I? O
mother, what would become of me? You don't know how I love you."
"Yes, darling, I do. You are tenderhearted as you are dutiful. And my
boys, to do them justice, they love me too; but they are wearing me
into my grave. At least, I feel it would be far better if I were lying
there."
"O mamma, mamma," sighed Letty, covering my Lady's tearful face with
kisses, "you will break my heart if you talk so."
"You will have somebody better able to-take care of you even than I,
dear child, when I am gone. And I will see that it is so. Yes, I will
leave directions behind me--you will find them in my desk, Letty;
remember this, should anything happen to me--about that matter as well
as other things. Richard will respect my wishes in such a case, I know,
and will offer no opposition."
"But, dearest mother, do you feel ill," cried Letty in an agony, "that
you talk of such things as these? Let us send for the doctor from
Dalwynch. How I wish that Arthur's father could be prevailed on to come
and see you! O mamma! I would rather die than you, although I am sure I
am not half so fit for death!"
"Dear child, dear child!" sobbed my Lady. "It will be a bitter parting
indeed for both of us--when the time comes. Perhaps it may not be so
near at hand as I feared. In the meantime, rest assured, love, that if
I feel a doctor can do me any good, he shall be sent for at once. But it
is the mind, and not the body, which has need of medicine.--There, dry
your eyes, and let us hope for the best. You will drive over with me
this afternoon, will you not, to Belcomb? There is no time to lose in
getting things ready there for our new tenant."
END OF VOL. II.
CHAPTER I. MADAME DE CASTELLAN.
|UPON the fourth day after the reception of her Paris letter, my
Lady had to leave Mirk for town on business connected with Walter's
affairs--for, after all, she cannot permit his elder brother to bear the
whole brunt of these unexpected expenses. Her visit was to the family
lawyer, and she went alone save for the attendance of Mistress Forest.
Under any circumstances, she would rather it were thus, she repeats,
even if the preparations going on at Mirk did not take up so fully Sir
Richard's time, and render his accompanying her out of the question. For
this Coming of Age was a case wherein surely a man might busy himself
even though the whole affair was to be held in his own honour; the very
name of Lisgard being in a manner at stake, and obnoxious to censure, if
everything should not be in a fitting scale and perfect of its kind;
nay (though certainly more remotely), might not the Great Principle of
Territorial Aristocracy have been almost said to be upon its trial
upon the coming occasion? The business must have been pressing indeed,
remarked the baronet a little pointedly, that took the mistress of Mirk
from home at such an important epoch; and he thought in his heart that
his mother might have put off this signature of a few parchments until
after the fte-day. However, it was plain that my Lady considered the
call to town imperative, since she started thither upon the very morning
of the day on which her old friend Madame de Castellan had appointed
to reach Belcomb; and although she hoped to be able to return on the
ensuing afternoon, in company with Walter and his wife, whose marriage
had been in the meantime publicly announced, it was not certain that her
affairs could be transacted within such time as would permit her to do
so. And so it unfortunately turned out. About an hour after luncheon,
the carriage having been despatched from the Abbey to the Dalwynch
station just so long as would admit of its return with its expected
inmates, the sound of wheels was heard in the avenue, and both Sir
Richard and Letty felt the colour come into their cheeks. Each imagined
that it was the Return of the Prodigal (in this case rendered more
embarrassing by the fact of his bringing his wife with him). Suppose
their mother should have been prevented from accompanying Captain
and Mrs Lisgard! How very awkward and disconcerting would this first
interview be; and especially for the poor baronet, who had never seen
Rose, at least to his own knowledge, as a married woman. His brother's
bride, too! Sir Richard rather repented for that minute or two that he
had made such a point of the young couple returning to Mirk so soon. He
felt quite grateful to his sister when she placed her hand upon his arm,
and whispered: "Had we not better go out to meet them, Richard?" At any
other time, he would perhaps have resented her offer to share the duties
of host; for was it not his place, and his alone, to bid guests welcome
to Mirk Abbey? But upon this occasion he accepted it gladly; and it was
lucky for him he did.
Instead of the gay barouche and glistening steeds from his own stables,
he beheld, when he reached the hall steps, the Dalwynch fly--for the
little town only boasted of one such conveyance--a yellow single-seated
machine, which had once been proud to call itself a post-chaise, and
been whirled through the air by panting wheelers and leaders; but it was
now dragged along by animals so melancholy and slow, that but for their
colour and shortness of tail, they might have been hearse-horses; while
the driver had a lugubrious expression too, as befitted one who felt
that he should never buckle on his single spur again, or crack his
whip in triumph, as he came up the street of the county town at
a hand-gallop. But the tenant of this vehicle was a far more
old-world-looking object than itself or its belongings; a very ancient
and silverhaired lady, looking almost double even as she sat, and only
able, painfully, to alight from her carriage by aid of Mr Robert's arm
and a crutched stick. Her complexion was an agreeable gingerbread; she
had not above three teeth, which, however, were very white ones, left
in either jaw; and her head shook from side to side with the palsy of
extreme old age. But despite these disadvantages, she had by no means an
unpleasant expression; and Sir Richard, with his fete-day running in his
head, was somehow reminded of one of those beneficent old fairies, who,
at considerable personal inconvenience, used to make a point of being
present at the christening, marriage, and other important occasions in
the life of the young prince with whose royal mother they had been such
great friends in years gone by. He hurried down the steps to offer his
arm to this strange visitor, and bid her respectful welcome.
"Madame de Castellan, for I think it can be no one else," said he; "it
is most kind of you to treat us thus. We ought to have been at Belcomb
ourselves by this time, instead of your being here, and indeed we should
have been there yesterday, had my mother been at home; but important
business has taken her to London, and I much regret to say that she has
not even yet returned, although we are expecting her every minute."
Either the exertion of alighting, or the reception of this unexpected
news, set the poor old lady shaking to that degree, that it seemed a
wonder that she did not shake to pieces. She fell to kissing Letty,
doubtless partly from affection, but also perhaps as an excuse for not
immediately commencing the ascent of those dreadful stairs.
"You don't either of you remember me, I dare say," mumbled she in the
French tongue.
Sir Richard smiled and bowed, as being the safest reply he could frame
to a question of which he understood nothing.
"Ah, Heaven, he does!" cried the old lady with evident delight. "That is
an excellent young man; and yet he was but a very little boy. And Miss
Letty? No, she does not remember--how should she? she was too young! And
Walter--the pretty boy, so spirituel, with his black velvet frock and
short sleeves tied with scarlet ribbon--where was he? What! grown up and
married? Was it possible! How time had flown; alas, alas! And the good
Dr Haldane and his wife, was he here as much as usual? clever, sarcastic
little gentleman!"
Not even the allusions to their own childhood gave Richard and his
sister so vast a notion of the time that had elapsed since Madame de
Castellan's previous visit to the Abbey, as this last remark of hers;
for the occurrence which had shut out the good doctor from the Abbey
had happened so long ago that it was almost legendary; and they were so
accustomed to his absence, that they could not picture to themselves the
state of things to which this patriarchal old lady referred as a matter
of course. As for Mrs Haldane, they had heard of the existence of such a
person, and that was all. That good woman had not made much noise in the
world when she was alive, and she had been among the Silent now for more
than eleven years. How far back were the explanations to begin, thought
Letty and her brother, that would make this female Rip Van Winkle au
fait with the present order of things?
But the old Frenchwoman was fortunately not nearly so anxious to be
answered as she was to talk, a feat which she accomplished with much
more distinctness than could have been expected, notwithstanding that
Sir Richard subsequently ascribed to her paucity of teeth the fact that
he only understood about two words out of her every five.
It was very amusing to watch the poor young baronet listening with
fruitless diligence to her rapid syllables, and then turning an
imploring glance upon his sister and sworn interpreter for aid and
rescue. He was obliged upon two occasions to frame some halting reply
with his own lips; once when Madame openly complimented him upon his
good looks and gallant bearing; and secondly, when she thanked him for
the readiness with which he had placed the cottage at Belcomb at her
disposal; but for the rest, the burden of conversation rested upon
Letty.
"And how is Marie--how is the good Marie, who was to your dear mamma
like a servant and a sister in one?" asked the old lady, when they had
got her with some difficulty into the drawing-room.
"She is well, Madame; but in some trouble about a certain suitor,
whom" (here she pouted a little) "Sir Richard here considers to be
undesirable."
Madame raised her rather shaggy eyebrows, and looked towards the young
baronet as if for an explanation. He knew that they were speaking of
Mistress Forest, and that was all.
"An admirable person," said he earnestly; "most trustworthy in every
way. We have all cause to be more than satisfied."
"Ah, then he does not object after all!" exclaimed Madame triumphantly.
"And Master Walter--what sort of a wife has he got? Beautiful? That is
well; it would be a pity if it were otherwise. And clever? Excellent!
And also good, I hope?"
"Well, Madame, she will be here in a minute, so that you may judge for
yourself," answered Letty smiling, but by no means displeased to hear
the craunch of carriage-wheels upon the gravel of the terraced drive.
These home questions concerning her new sister-in-law were getting
rather difficult to answer, and especially in Richard's presence.
"Will your mother be with them?" inquired Madame, gathering from the
faces of her companions, rather than from any sound which could have
reached her tardy ears, that the arrival of those expected was imminent.
"As I said before, Madame, I cannot promise; but I sincerely trust, for
your sake--as, indeed, for her own--that it may be so. I am sure mamma
will deeply grieve to have missed you."
The next moment, Captain and Mrs Lisgard were announced. Richard walked
straight up to Rose, and taking her hand in his best Sir Roger de
Coverley manner, bade her frank but stately welcome. Then, "How are you,
Walter?" said he, giving his brother's fingers an earnest squeeze, and
simulating cordiality all he could. "Here is a very old friend of our
mother's, Madame de Castellan, who remembers you in a velvet frock with
short sleeves and cherry-coloured ribbons."
For the first time, Sir Richard blessed this old lady's presence,
which was so greatly mitigating to him the difficulties of this dreaded
interview; but Walter appeared to be but little embarrassed; less so,
indeed, than Madame herself, who, overcome, doubtless, by the strong
resemblance to his mother in the young man now presented to her, began
to tremble again almost as much as she had done a while ago.
"And this is Master Walter," said she in broken tones. "I think I should
have known that without any introduction." Here she held him with both
her hands at arms' length. "I suppose, now, you do not remember me at
all?"
"Madame," returned the young man in bad French, but briskly enough, and
with a very pleasant smile, "I cannot say I do. Little folks in velvet
frocks have very bad memories. But I have often heard my dear mother
speak of you most affectionately; indeed, she wrote to me of your
expected arrival at Belcomb with greater pleasure than I have known her
to take in anything for years."
"Except your marriage, Mister the Captain, eh?" returned the old lady
archly. "Come, introduce me to your lovely bride. Ah, Heaven, what
a young couple! Well, I like to see that--I who might be the
great-grandmother of both of you.--How are you, Madame Walter? What do
they call you? Rose! Ah, a charming name."
But though the name was so charming, and the young lady was so lovely,
Madame de Castellan did not take her to her arms and embrace her as
she had taken Letty. Indeed, if it was possible for Rose to look
disconcerted, she would have done so now, as she stood with cast-down
eyes, exposed to the same steady scrutiny as her husband had just been
subjected to; but there was by no means so much affection in the old
lady's gaze on this occasion. When she had regarded her sufficiently,
she dismissed her with a patronising tap upon the head, and once more
addressed herself to Walter. "And what have you done with your mamma,
sir?"
"I have done nothing, Madame," answered he laughing. "She has never
given me the chance of making away with her, if it is of that you
suspect me; for she never came to see us in town at all. We were to
meet at the station this morning, but she was not there. I am afraid,
therefore--for she dislikes travelling at night--that we shall not see
her before this time to-morrow."
Master Walter was in very different cue from that in which we saw him
last. The burden of his difficulties had been lifted from his shoulders,
at all events for the present. He had been saved at least from ruin, and
that, though he might be henceforth compelled to live the life of a
poor man, was a matter of congratulation; just as one is thankful, in
shipwreck upon the desolate seas, to land on even a barren rock. His
spirits were always buoyant, and they were now asserting themselves
after a period of severest pressure. In short, Master Walter was himself
again--good-humoured, graceful, and as desirous as well fitted to please
all with whom he came into contact. It was plain that he had made a
complete conquest of this old Frenchwoman.
"And Marie, have you hidden her anywhere, you naughty boy?"
"Not I, Madame. If you saw her, you would understand that she is not
easily hidden. You remember her plump, I daresay; but plump is now no
word for her. Even love--and she is love-sick, poor thing, at
five-and-forty, or so--does not render her less solid."
"Ah, wicked, to laugh at Love!" replied the old lady, holding up a
reproving finger, of whose shape and whiteness she was evidently proud,
and not altogether without reason; "and worse still, to laugh at Marie.
I love that dear Mistress Forest; and mind you, tell mamma, if ever she
parts with her, that she is to come straight to me. What would I not
give for a waiting-maid like that--devoted, prudent, to whom I could
confide my little love-affairs!--Why do you laugh, rude children? It
is, I see, time that I should go.--Seriously," continued she, when the
chorus of dissatisfaction had died away (for every one except, perhaps,
Rose, was pleased with this sprightly old lady, and all felt her
presence to be, under the circumstances, an immense relief), "I must
be going home at once.--Thank you kindly, Sir Richard, but to stay to
dinner is impossible. The night-air, at my time of life--more even than
'five-or-forty or so, Mister the Captain--is very unwholesome. You must
all come and lunch with me shortly A fte champtre upon the--what is
it you call it?--Lisgard Folly. You will give this kiss to mamma for me,
Miss Letty, and tell her I must see her to-morrow--no, the day after,
for she will be tired. I will not have any of you young people on that
day. I shall wish to talk to her alone about so many things. Will
you please to ring for my--that droll conveyance which you call
mouche--'fly?'--Adieu, Madame Walter; take care of your handsome
husband, for I have fallen in love with him.--Adieu to you, naughty
boy.--Now, Sir Richard, if you will give me your arm, by the time we get
to the front door, and down these dreadful steps, the mouche will be
at the door, though he walk slow, as though he had just escaped out of
treacle."
As the pair made their way to the hall, at the pace of chief-mourners,
Madame de Castellan, to Richard's surprise and joy, began, for the first
time, to speak in broken English. "Your mother is very fond of you all,"
said she; "I hope you are fond of her."
"I hope so indeed, Madame: we should be very ungrateful if we were not."
"That is well, young man. Be good to her, for our mothers are obliged to
leave us, you know, long before we go ourselves."
"God forbid, Madame, that we should lose her these many years," answered
the baronet fervently.
"Yes, yes; but mind this," answered the old lady testily, as she climbed
into the mouche, "that if Mistress Forest should want a place--here am
I at Belcomb, very glad to receive her. Good-bye."
Sir Richard, thunder-struck, stared at the slowly-departing vehicle like
one in a dream. "I never heard such a speech," soliloquised he--"never.
Can that old harridan be really calculating upon my mother's death
giving her a new lady's-maid? How selfish is extreme old age! I could
not have believed it possible. How it would have distressed mamma,
could she have heard her. And yet but for that speech, she seemed an
affectionate and kindly old creature enough. I have often heard that
Frenchwomen have no hearts, but only manners--and I suppose that so it
is."
CHAPTER II. THE PARTIE QUARR.
|AS Walter had predicted, my Lady did not return to Mirk by the evening
train, and scarcely under any circumstances could her absence have
been more keenly felt. The four young folks at home were by no means so
socially comfortable as a partie quarr is proverbially said to be. They
felt themselves embarrassed even when all together; but when the couples
were left alone, the gentlemen over the dessert, and the ladies in the
drawing-room, their position was tenfold more awkward. If they had
not been so nearly connected, the one might have taken refuge in
conversation about the weather or politics, and the other in books or
bonnet-shapes; but one of the many disadvantages of near relationship
is, that you are cut off from all havens of that sort The device is too
transparent to be adopted or acquiesced in--each was conscious that the
other was thinking of all sorts of unpleasant things, and wishing his
companion at Jericho--or York at least. The temperature was so mild
that there was not even a fire to poke.
"You remember this claret, Walter, I dare say."
"Yes; did not our father reckon it the next best in his cellar to that
of the Comet year?" &c., &c.
But it struck them both that an absence of a few days from the Abbey was
not likely to produce forgetfulness upon this particular point more than
upon any other. Sir Richard did not venture to propose a cigar in the
smoking-room; they sat on either side of the empty grate making a great
pretence of enjoying their wine (which might have been ginger-beer,
for any gratification it afforded them) and racking their brains for
something to say. At last Walter blurted out with a great show of
frankness: "Richard, you were quite right about that fellow Derrick; I
wish I had taken your view of the man; he has let me in for a good deal
of money this Derby."
"I am sorry for that," returned the other, with genuine pleasure. "Yes,
I knew he was a bad lot. I hope, however, he has now left Mirk for good
and all."
"No; he'll come back after Mary Forest, I have no doubt; and I am afraid
I was partly to blame in helping him in that quarter. But he knows what
I think of him now."
"I am glad of it," said the baronet drily.
"Nice, conciliating, agreeable companion this is," soliloquised Walter:
"I think I see myself making any second admission of having been
wrong where he was right." His self-humiliation, however, had not been
altogether without an object.
"Yes; I lost a considerable sum--that is, considerable for me--through
this gentleman from Cariboo," continued the captain. "It is all in
train for being settled--I am not going to ask you, Richard, for another
shilling. I am sure you have been already extremely generous--very
much so. But the money can't be paid for a few months; and there is one
rascal--an infernal Jew fellow--who, instead of replying to my letter,
offering him very handsome terms, I am sure, has had the impertinence, I
see, to write to mamma."
"A Jew fellow write to my mother!" exclaimed Sir Richard, with an
indignant emphasis upon the personal pronoun.
"I am afraid so. I am almost sure I recognise his horrid handwriting
upon this envelope."
He took down one of several letters upon the mantel-piece that had
arrived that morning for the mistress of the house, and were awaiting
her return.
"You see he knows I'm under age, and he thinks to frighten one's people
into immediate payment by threatening all sorts of things which he
cannot really put into effect, but which will alarm mamma very much
indeed. It's a common trick."
"Oh, indeed; I am not acquainted with the ways of such people myself.
And what is it you propose to do, Walter?"
"Well, I don't think my mother should see that letter at all. He is
not a sort of person--the beggar, you see, spells 'Abbey' without an
e--for a lady to have anything to do with."
"Nor a gentleman either, as I should think," observed the baronet
severely. "But I do not perceive how we can prevent this mischief. You
cannot open the letter, nor destroy it, of course."
"No, of course not," assented Walter, though with the air of a person
who had only been very recently convinced of the impossibility.
Sir Richard took the objectionable missive between his finger and thumb.
To the Honorable Lady Lisgard, Mirk Abby, Dalwynch.
What a deal of trouble this fellow Walter was causing! Of course, one
did not wish one's brother any harm, but what a nice thing it would be
if one could get him some appointment in the Colonies. New Zealand was
said to be very salubrious, and had an excellently conducted church
establishment: the last mail, too, had brought home (for the eleventh
time) the joyful news that the Maories were finally subjugated.
"A perfect savage," observed Walter, with reference to Mr Moss Welcher
Abrahams.
"And yet with some good points," argued the baronet, his thoughts still
lingering in the antipodes.
"I'm hanged if I ever heard of them, then," replied his brother with
irritation. "He's a black-leg and a usurer. I'd never have bet with such
an infernal scoundrel, only that he offered me half a point more than
the odds."
"Ah," returned Sir Richard, with all the expressiveness that is
attributed to the "Ugh" of the North American Indian. "Suppose we join
the ladies."
I do not pretend to narrate how Rose and Letty had passed their time
since dinner. No grown-up male--with the exception, perhaps, of Mr
Anthony Trollope, whom I have heard ladies say has actually described
the thing--can picture the mysteries that take place in the drawingroom
before the gentlemen come in. Do they tell stories, I wonder, like the
folks in the dining-room? Now and then something incidentally crops up
which induces me to think they do; but there is no absolute proof. When
I was a very little boy, and there chanced to be a dinner-party at home,
after having had my half-glass of wine--"up to the cut," I remember,
was the niggardly phrase--it was my invariable custom to leave the
dining-room when the ladies did; and well I recollect how my
elder brother used playfully to flick my unprotected legs with his
dinner-napkin, as I closed the petticoated procession. But memory often
retains what is least worth keeping, and loses that which is truly
valuable. If I had only known that it would be my future mission to
write stories, I should doubtless have not so neglected my opportunities
in the drawingroom. But at that time I looked forward to be a merchant
engaged in the diamond business, and realising thousands of purses of
sequins by traffic with the natives of Bagdad and Bassorah. Indeed, upon
these very after-dinner occasions I used to be taken upon somebody's
lap, and entertained with anecdotes of that charming profession, the
members of which were exposed to no vulgar bankruptcies; but if they
escaped from the mighty Roc (which was a bird) and from the loadstone
island (which drew all the nails out of their argosies), were certain
to live happy ever afterwards with some beautiful princess, who did not
scorn to ally herself with trade. Alas! the tongue is withered now that
spoke such magic, and the kind hand that fondled my childish curls is
dissolved in dust; and it is like enough that all the rest of the gay
company is dead except that little boy. No; I remember nothing of it,
except that the older ladies, and especially the married ones, used to
herd together, and interchange what I took to be secret and important
communications; and that the young ones seemed to get after a while a
little tired of one another (notwithstanding that they were particularly
civil and affectionate), and turned expectant glances toward the door.
They could not, however, have been more pleased to see the gentlemen
than Rose and Letty were upon that evening in Mirk drawing-room to
welcome the two brothers. Much as women are praised for their superior
tact, it is my humble opinion that they possess less of it than
ourselves. Their gentleness, beauty, and general attractiveness enable
them, it is true, to render certain rough places tolerably smooth--nay,
some almost impregnable passes very practicable; but considering
their great advantages, they often signally fail in a piece of social
engineering, the difficulties of which almost any man would have managed
to evade. They prefer cutting a tunnel through granite to deviating a
hairbreadth from the line they have marked out for themselves. How often
has one sat on tenter-hooks, listening to a woman who raises a domestic
breeze to storm, when anybody but herself (who has yet been married to
the man a score of years) can perceive both drum and cone mast-high in
her husband's face and manner; nay, when you, the spectator, have marked
half-a-dozen openings--only she will charge with her head down in that
foolish manner--by which she could have approached her consort's heart
in the course of discussion, and got all she wanted, and yet let him
keep his temper. When a Man happens to have some feminine gifts,
tenderness, grace, beauty--like Walter Lisgard, for instance--what power
of pleasing, what avoidance of all subjects of displeasure, he almost
always exhibits, notwithstanding his masculine selfishness. It is very
possible, indeed, that this young dragoon may not have captivated
my readers; but that is because it is not possible to convey, by any
description, the attributes which make such a man so popular. Men talk
of the nameless charm that hangs about some fair one, her unspeakably
winning manners, and the grace "beyond expression" that pervades her
being; but the influence of such a charmer is almost entirely confined
to the other sex.
She cannot compel adoration from her young-lady friends: not solely
because she is their successful rival, but partly because she does not
possess the art of winning them. She has not the tact to conceal her
superiority, to conciliate their prejudices, to win their friendship.
Now, Walter Lisgard, who was of course adored by women, was almost as
popular with men. There were half-a-dozen or so of people--among
whom were Ralph Derrick and Arthur Haldane--who had seen him under
circumstances of extreme annoyance, and had been disenchanted of the
smiling kindly boy. There was Sir Richard too--but there were reasons
enough why Walter should not possess his brother's good-will, and having
failed to win it, it was the nature of such a man to be embarrassed
in his presence. Dislike, nay even want of appreciation, will often
paralyse the most agreeable of our fellow-creatures, and make them
duller than those who are at all times equally tedious. But if Walter
had been in Rose's place, I think he would have managed to get on better
than she did in that tte--tte with her peccant sister-in-law. No
woman can conceal her annoyance from its object, if that be a person of
her own sex; she can only be desperately civil.
At all events, husband and brother were received by these two young
ladies as though they had been their lovers; and then the tea came up,
itself a diversion, which they prolonged to an inordinate limit. Who is
so fortunate that he has never been compelled to Tea against Time! The
dinner-hour at the Abbey, however, in consonance with ancient county
habits, was a somewhat early one--six o'clock--and there was a
considerable amount of evening to be got through. Sir Richard, in these
terrible straits, proposed a game at whist; and the four accordingly sat
down at the velvet card-table--scarcely ever used at Mirk--the gentlemen
to contend for shilling points, and the ladies for postage-stamps. Mr
Charles Lamb has informed us that he is inclined to think that there
may be such a thing as sick whist; and if that admirable humorist
had witnessed this particular rubber, he would have had his suspicions
confirmed. Poor Walter thought grimly of his last experience in that way
with the Landrails, and could not help making an estimate of how many
cycles of years it would take him, with average luck, to win back the
money lost upon that occasion at the present stakes. Immersed in this
calculation, he made a series of infamous blunders, for which Letty, who
was, of course, his partner, reproved him with that unsparing severity
which this delightful science induces even in an angelic partner: it
is at the whist-table that the trodden worm will turn with the most
energetic writhings. Sir Richard, on the other hand (who scarcely ever
ventured upon any finesse except that of Ace, Queen), was put in the
highest spirits, and became as offensively triumphant as his chivalric
nature would permit. Rose, poor girl, sincerely bewailed her husband's
vanishing shillings, of which she knew he had no superfluity, and would
have trumped her partner's best card half-a-dozen times over, had she
but dared. Altogether, it was the dreariest of domestic evenings.
The morning that followed was not much better; and never did mother
receive a sincerer welcome from her offspring than did Lady Lisgard
upon her return. The love-light danced in her eyes for a little at their
genuine enthusiasm, but it soon died out, and they all observed how
tired and worn she looked, how much more white and wan than when she
had started from home. If Sir Richard had had the opportunity, I almost
think he would have now acted upon his brother's suggestion, and spared
his mother the sight of Mr Moss Abrahams' letter. But it was too late.
Letty had herself taken possession of it; and when the first greetings
were over, and all had had their say about the visitor of the day
before, she put it into her mother's hand along with the other missives.
"I don't know who your correspondents may be, dear mamma, but I should
recommend one of them to apply to that gentleman who promises in
the Times newspaper to teach everybody a legible hand for
four-and-sixpence; and when he has done that, he might learn a little
spelling, such as A, b, ab; e, y, by---Abbey."
"I daresay it will wait till I go up stairs," said my Lady with a faint
smile; and she did not even look at it. Nay, when she had reached her
room, and was alone with her maid, although she turned the letter round
and round with hurried, anxious fingers, she did not open it even then,
but gave it to Mistress Forest, saying piteously: "I am not sure about
the handwriting. Is it his, or no, Mary?"
"It is not his, madam."
"Thank Heaven for that!" cried my Lady, breaking the vulgar, sprawling
seal, and rapidly possessing herself of the contents. "More trouble,"
sighed she. "And yet, why should I sigh: this is only another reason to
add to the budget in yonder desk for what I am about to do."
"That is well, dear madam, and bravely said," answered the waiting-maid.
"It is no use to court delay. Sooner or later, the blow must fall; if
not to-day, then to-morrow. If he does not write, be sure, my Lady, that
he will come himself; we must make up our minds for that. He cannot
go to Coveton, and see my father--which is what I feel he intends to
do--without discovering all; and since that must be, the sooner he does
so the better. We are now prepared for the worst--for everything, in
short, except suspense."
"That is true," returned my Lady wearily. "Heaven help us!"
"Amen," exclaimed Mistress Forest encouragingly; "and I both hope and
believe it will."
CHAPTER III. A JOURNEY ON FOOT.
|SOME men, when crossed or "put out," take, like Sir Richard Lisgard, to
whistling melodies--surely a very mild and harmless form of irritation.
Others rap out a thunder-clap of an oath or two, which leaves their
firmament as serene as ever. Nothing, again, can calm the wrath of some
folks but pedestrian exercise; ghost-wise, they take to "walking," and
gradually their angry passions exude. This last was the case with Mr
Ralph Derrick, Mariner and Gold-digger.
When deeply annoyed, and some exceptional barrier existed to his
throwing the weightiest substance that happened to be at hand at the
head of his enemy, or burying some lethal weapon in his vitals, Ralph
took to walking like the Wandering Jew. With the first stage or two, his
thoughts were busy with the insult, real or imaginary, which had been
put upon him; his teeth were set, his fingers clenched, his brows were
corrugated; then he began to swing his loaded stick, not viciously,
but after the manner of an Irishman at a fair; and eventually that
calisthenic exercise, combined with the healthy influence of fresh air,
restored him to that normal state of devil-may-care, which persons
of charity go so far as to term, in folks of the like description,
good-humour. Of course, one cannot help pitying this poor fellow, for
he is one of those persons who always look much better on paper than
in real life, just the reverse of which is the case with the Walter
Lisgards; but as a matter of fact, he is not only a "rough customer,"
but a very dangerous and reckless man. Because we have seen him behave
towards that graceless captain of dragoons in a very generous and
high-flown manner, it is not to be supposed that he was always capable
of magnanimous actions. That young gentleman had been his pet, and it
had suited his mood to spoil him. A man may not only be agreeable to an
individual or two, but an excellent father, or a pattern husband, and
yet be a most offensive fellow-creature to you and to me. But it was
certainly hard upon Ralph that the only man for whom he entertained a
genuine affection, should have turned out such an ungrateful scamp. The
treatment he had lately received at that young man's hands, the knavery
of Mr Jack Withers, and the more than suspected collusion of his late
comrade, Mr Blanquette, united to put him out of humour with the world.
His previous opinions, as imported from Cariboo, before he met with
Walter, that everybody was more or less of a scoundrel, had met with the
amplest confirmation. He was more determined to take his own way than
ever, and let them look to it that crossed him. Bitter, indeed, had been
his thoughts as he had been borne along with that rabble rout on foot
from Epsom Downs. Deceived by those whom he had trusted, insulted by him
whom he had loved, and robbed of three-fourths of that wealth, to which
he now ascribed a greater importance than ever, as the summum bonum,
and indeed the only good thing that was worth gaining, he had but
stopped in London a sufficient time to pack up his scanty wardrobe, then
started off again on foot once more, as we have seen. Disgusted with the
Turf, as with all else he had recently had to do with, he was now more
than ever bent upon leading a new life--not, indeed, in a penitential
sense (although some are so audacious as to aver that it is a kind of
mortification), but, in other words, to marry. Mistress Forest was as
fond of him, he thought, and with some justice, as any woman was
ever likely to be; and he was resolved not to be balked of her by the
machinations of Sir Richard Lisgard, or the cajolments of his mother.
After the payment of all his bets, he would yet have left a sum that to
one in Mary's position would seem considerable; for he could sell Many
Laws, after his recent performance, for a great deal of money, to the
half of which he rather suspected Mr Blanquette would never venture to
lay claim. Yes; he would go down to the place where she had told him
her father still dwelt, and would dazzle him with such offers as could
scarcely fail to induce him to add the weight of his authority to his
own proposals; and there being no particular hurry about the matter,
and, as I have said, walking being consonant to his feelings when in
wrath, Ralph Derrick had taken the road to Coveton on foot.
It was a long distance, and would have involved several days of such
travel, under any circumstances, and he did not hurry himself at all.
At many a wayside inn, where he stopped to drink, and found the landlord
given that way, and to be good company, he stayed for the day and
night, and even longer. And often he left the high-road, and took
those short-cuts across country which, like "raw haste," are generally
"half-sisters to delay." This was especially the case when he began to
draw near the sea. Those who have passed much of their time upon that
element (voluntarily), the roar of ocean attracts as the trumpet-blast
the quondam charger, and mile after mile did Derrick stride along the
cliff-top wherever it was practicable, and by the shore, notwithstanding
that his indulgence in that fancy doubled his journey. When we are out
of humour with our fellow-creatures, the external aspects of nature,
even though we be no Poets, have often a special attraction for us; the
winds of Spring--since as much has been said of those of Winter--are
certainly not so unkind as man's ingratitude, and we bid them blow with
a sort of soothing scorn; nor does the blue spring sky bite half so nigh
as benefits forgot. It pleased Ralph Derrick to let it do its worst,
and, rain or shine, he never sought shelter save when he needed drink or
rest; and during this last part of his travel, he obtained them as often
at some humble farmhouse as at an inn. The simple folks, who stared at
his great beard, and wondered why he did not shew them what goods he
had in his knapsack, like any other pedler, pleased him hugely; and when
some newly-soaped and carefully-brushed bashful child would steal into
his humble dining-chamber--which was the guidwife's, invariable plan of
getting her dues settled, since we cannot charge for things, you know
(and especially brandy), without a licence--he would take the little
creature upon his knee, and give him or her his newest shilling, in
addition to what was always a liberal settlement of the account. Perhaps
he was practising that rle of Paterfamilias which he hoped to be
soon called upon to play. At all events, Ralph was by this time in high
spirits; and when he was told that Coveton lay not above a dozen miles
ahead of him even by the coast-line, he threw his cudgel into the air,
and shouted a wild fragment of a diggers' song, to the consternation of
his rustic informant.
His way lay now over a great waste of moorland, elastic to the tread,
and over which the wind swept almost as unresisted as on the ocean from
whence it came. Here and there, it whistled through a hare thorn, but
what few trees there were had hidden themselves in sunken hollows, and
stood therein huddled together, with only their shivering tops above the
surface. Nothing was to be seen inland save "a level waste of rounded
gray," broken now and again by a church spire or a scattered hamlet; but
the seaward view was very fine. From that moorland height, you looked
upon two fair islands spread like a raised map, beneath, with every hut
and quarry distinctly plain, and the small white light-house standing
out on its little hill like a child's toy upon its pedestal. How
picturesque and sequestered they looked: how like two miniature but
independent worlds, to either of which a man who had had enough and to
spare of the turmoil of life might retire with some fitting mate, and
peacefully end his days. Surely, thought Ralph, he had somewhere seen
those two same islands before! As he stood at gaze, his thoughts went
wandering over archipelagoes of garden-ground in tropic seas; over rocky
islets sawn from iron-bound coasts by the jagged waves; and over mounds
of sand, which the ocean had thrust back into the jaws of rivers, and
suffered man to call them Land, and dwell there. But these were none of
those. As he went on more slowly, searching through the long gallery of
his mind for the picture which he knew was there, and half bewildered
by the shifting scenes, he was startled by a noise like distant thunder.
The sky was almost without a cloud, and the sea, although running high,
and dashing with pettish screech against the cliffs, was not so rough
but that the fishing-smacks, of which there was quite a fleet in motion,
carried all sail; moreover, the thunderous sound was not upon the
seaward side, but inland. A few score rapid strides in that direction
made its source apparent. An enormous hole, like half-a-dozen
gravel-pits in one, but deep as a mine, was gaping there; and at the
bottom, whether it had tunnelled through years of patient unremitting
toil, lay the churning sea. It was a gruesome sight to mark the solid
earth--just where a peaceful cornfield met the moorland--thus invaded
by its insidious foe, whose horrid pan seemed to have something of
malicious greed as well as exultation in it, as though it lusted to eat
the heart of the round world itself away, after the same manner. "The
Devil's Cauldron!" exclaimed Ralph excitedly, and then looked round
him with a half-shudder, as though he had repeated the statement out of
deference to a Great Local Authority, rather than initiated it of his
own free-will. Yes, such was the name by which the place was known;
he felt certain of that fact; but unless in sober seriousness H. S. M.
himself had whispered the information, how did he ever come to be aware
of it? He had certainly never been there before, in all his life; it was
impossible, having once seen it, to have forgotten so abnormal as well
as tremendous a scene. True, there are pits and holes in many cliffs a
few yards from their edge which reach like shafts in a tunnel down to
the sea; but the distance of this place from the shore might be measured
by furlongs, and the pit was so large that it almost resembled a
land-locked bay. A Cauldron it might well be called, where the black
waters were seething and boiling even now, while in storm-time there
would be such wild work as no mere witches could raise, but only the
Fiend himself, their master.
Did the mad waves, finding themselves thus imprisoned, ever leap up?
Yes: now he remembered all. Thirty years ago, last autumn, he had seen
those islands once before from shipboard, and had had them in view for a
whole day. The wind, which was dead against the vessel, had kept her off
and on that dangerous coast, and eventually risen to storm, and sunk her
with all on board save him alone. The last time he had seen that little
light-house, it had flashed in vain its fiery warning through sheets
of blinding foam. The captain had told him, hours before, what sort of
shore awaited them, if ever the North Star should be driven upon those
pitiless cliffs, on which Derrick himself was now standing; and, in
particular, he had mentioned the Devil's Cauldron, which was spouting
foam yonder, he said, like Leviathan, a quarter of a mile inland over
the standing corn. Ralph lay down at full length upon the thymy moor,
and peered over the brink of the abyss with earnest gaze, as though
he could fathom its dark depths, and mark what lay beneath them. Then
rising, with a sigh, he wandered on, no longer with springy tread,
until presently the cliff-top became dotted with white verandaed houses,
looking down upon a little bay, that ran up into the land between steep
banks, well clothed with trees and shrubs; whereby he knew that he had
come to his journey's end, and that this must needs be Coveton.
CHAPTER IV. COVETON
|COVETON--well known to ancient coupled who took their first honeymoons
half a century ago--is one of those old-fashioned sea-side places that
resolutely refuse to be "improved," and the denizens of which affect to
speak of Brighton as Brighthelmstone, and to treat it as a rival
upon equal terms. It has two very pretty inns, but there is so little
competition between them, that there is a shrewd suspicion that they
are under the same management; a few more houses have been built, it is
true, within the last half century, but they are all constructed upon
that same principle of fancy architecture, adopted at Coveton from the
first, and which perhaps I may term the Lowther Arcadian. At least I am
sure that the models of all its dwelling-houses are to be found in that
respectable metropolitan emporium: weather indicators, built for
the accommodation of an unencumbered couple; churches for the
dressing-table, in the front elevation of which you hang your watch
before retiring to rest; villa residences, down whose chimneys you drop
halfpence (or half-crowns, if you are so minded), for the encouragement
of missionary enterprise; and gritty erections for all sorts of
ingenious purposes, but which to the Uninstructed suggest only the means
of lighting a cigarmatch. You have no idea, unless you have been to
Coveton, how odd is the effect of a real village to the construction
of which these Lowther Arcadian principles have been applied; where the
doctors, father and son, live in a Weather Indicator (only, of course,
about five hundred times as big), and the former keeps indoors when it
is wet, and the son goes out in all weathers; where a genuine clergyman
lives in a magnified money-box, and you look up involuntarily at the
upper windows, in the expectation of seeing Help the Heathen running
in a neat scroll between the first and second floors; and where the
gritty church has a real clock in the very place where the hole was left
in the model. The whole place looks, in short, as though some clever
child had built it out of a box of fancy bricks, after the pattern
of what he had seen on nursery mantel-pieces, or suspended from
Christmas-trees.
Not only is the place old-fashioned in itself, and resolute to resist
innovation, but the modern conveniences, which some enthusiasts have
endeavoured to import thither, have suffered by the unnatural coalition.
A branch-railway, for instance, has been attached to this Sleepy Hollow
from a great trunk-line; but the only result is that the railway has
become demoralised, and ceased to perform its functions. It goes no
faster than the four-horse coach, which still continues to run between
Coveton and the nearest provincial town; it is very uncertain in
its times of arrival and departure, and prone to delay, for with
old-fashioned gallantry, its trains never fail to stop to pick up a
lady, if she does but wave her parasol, no matter whether there is
a station on the spot or not. As to the supply of luxuries, or even
necessaries, the railway has been a total failure, and there is just the
same difficulty in obtaining a sufficiency of food in Coveton as in the
good old times--immortalised in a wood-cut at the top of the bills
of the Royal Marine Hotel--when his Royal Highness the Duke of Kent
arrived there in a carriage-and-four with outriders, and left a famine
in the flattered hamlet behind him, after a residence of forty-eight
hours. The most artful London bargainer who should take lodgings in
Coveton, and attempt to do her own housekeeping, would infallibly fail
to procure sustenance for herself and family. Nobody but a native can be
certain, for instance, of securing a joint of meat. You have literally
to "get up early," if your ambition extends to anything of that kind. By
9 o'clock A.M. the butcher's shop--the facsimile of those which are
sold in the Lowther Arcade for children to play at "going to market"
with--has disposed of its single sheep, which lies dismembered
and ticketed with the names of its several purchasers, thus: Miss
Robinson's leg; Mrs Captain Cooper's shoulder; the Rev. Jones' kidneys;
and so on. No sheep will be killed again till Saturday next. Beef is
only to be looked for once a fortnight. Veal is an accident not to be
counted upon at all. Game--you might just as well ask for Bird's-nest
soup; and all the fish that is ever caught at Coveton goes as direct as
the poor shambling dawdling railway can take it to the great metropolis.
If you stay at either of the hotels, you will not indeed be starved,
because one half of the above-mentioned sheep is always divided between
those two establishments; but you will not find any more variety.
They are principally patronised by newly-married couples, who are too
intoxicated with happiness to be very particular about their comfort.
There are secluded arbours dotted about the pretty gardens expressly for
the accommodation of this class of the community; and when a new
arrival does not walk about the place with its arm round its waist (I am
speaking of course of that mysterious duality which makes one out of two
people), it walks about, hand in hand, like grown-up children. Nobody
minds, in this little village, where honey-mooning is the normal state
of visitors, and discreet behaviour the exception. Coveton itself,
though on a small scale, is lovely, and naturally attracts these
unsophisticated couples as to another Eden; there are a hundred winding
walks--with rather abrupt turnings, however, which I have heard objected
to as bringing folks face to face unexpectedly upon other folks who
are already in that position--and seats provided at the local expense,
commanding most exquisite views of the sea at all times, and of the moon
when there happens to be one; and I do not doubt that as pleasant hours
have been spent at Coveton as at any other place of its age and size
within the four seas. I do not, however, recommend any middle-aged
person, who has lost his taste for the mere vanities of life, and is
particular about having cucumber with his salmon, to put up at either
the Royal Marine Hotel at Coveton, or the other. They are both
perfectly clean, it is true, but cleanliness is not everything, or else
we should all go to prison, or endeavour to obtain situations from the
Trinity House as supernumeraries in Lighthouses. It is not pleasant
to have one's bed and board in one (the mattresses of the R. H. M.
indeed, I think, are of cast iron); and when one does bring a bit of
fish with one from town, one does not like it to be boiled in saltpetre,
through a misunderstanding connected with cooling one's champagne with
the best substitute for ice.
However, Mr Ralph Derrick, who patronised this particular establishment,
found, for his part, nothing to complain of, except that its half-pints
of brandy were exceptionally small; he therefore ordered a second after
his dinner, and inquired of the waiter who brought it where Jacob Forest
lived, and which was the nearest way of getting to his cottage.
"Jacob Forest, sir; yes, sir. You don't mean William Forest, perhaps,
sir?" answered the waiter, gently whisking his napkin like a horse's
tail, and with an air of patronage in his tone, as though he would say:
"I am very well aware you have made a mistake, so I do not hesitate to
own it."
"No, I don't mean William Forest, nor yet Nebuchadneser Forest, nor
Beelzebub Forest, if those names happen to run in the family," rejoined
Derrick impatiently. "I mean simply Jacob Forest."
"Beg pardon, sir, I'm sure, sir. But such an exceedingly old person, and
so seldom inquired after; whereas, you see, William, he's a boat or two
to let; and if you are anything in the shell or fossil line, he's quite
an authority.--Mr Jacob's cottage, sir? Well, sir, the fact is, he has
not lived in what you call a cottage for a long time. He has had a snug
little house of his own, ever since my Lady Lisgard----But you know all
about that story, I dare say, sir?"
"Yes, yes," answered Derrick drily; for the very name of Lisgard had
grown distasteful to him, and particularly in connection with
his intended wife. "I know that Jacob's daughter has a very kind
mistress--very; in fact, that she will never part with such a treasure
of a waiting-maid, if she can help it. But let us get on to the house,
if you please, for I want to call there to-night, and it is even now
growing rather dark."
"Yes, sir; it is, sir. I am sorry that the dinner was so unavoidably
delayed. The last train and the last coach having come in, we did not
expect any more gentry this afternoon, or would have made preparation.
But the fact is, sir, there is no hurry with respect to Mr Forest. You
will find him abed now, and you will find him no more than that two
hours hence, for poor old Jacob is bed-ridden. Very cheerful though, I
hear, and would like a chat and a glass of grog with any gentleman
like yourself, no matter what time it was; and if you will permit me to
advise, you will wait till the moon is up; for the path across the Cove
is not easy to find after dusk; and then there's the churchyard, which,
somehow, one always dislikes--at least I know I do--to pass through
latish, unless one can see one's way pretty well; and after that,
there's a bit of a spinney before you get to the old man's house;
so although you can see it at top of the hill yonder from this
window--there it is, the white house with a thatched roof--you may judge
that it is a good long step."
"I see," said Derrick nodding. "Then I shall light my pipe, and stroll
down to the sea-shore until the moon rises, if you're sure that the old
man will see me at so late an hour."
"I am quite sure, sir; it will please him above all things, for he
complains he gets no sleep of nights, to speak of. You will go down to
the Cove, of course; that's what all our gentry does when there is a
moon; and I shall sit up for you till you come back--although our hour
for closing is eleven, sir, sharp."
"Thank you, my man," said Derrick, "do so;" and lighting his pipe, he
strolled down thoughtfully towards the shore.
It was dark enough in the wooded Cove, although the trees were as yet
but scantily clothed in their spring garments; but ever and anon, at a
turn of the winding path, he came to some open spot artistically left
there, where the darkling Sea lay stretched before him, waiting for her
tiring-maid the Moon to clasp her jewels on. Even thus unadorned, she
shewed divinely fair as her bosom rose and fell unstirred by passion,
for the winds had lulled since sundown, and her gentle breath came up
to him in even beats. How different must she have looked from hence,
thought he, upon that night of storm which he had expected to be his
last. The gale was taking them inshore, when the vessel sprung her leak;
and doubtless many a fellow-passenger of his had reached this coast,
perchance this very Cove, although not with life. O treacherous sea! you
that can smile and smile, and break into ten thousand smiles, and make
such dainty music on the pebbly shore, who can believe how cruel
your wrath can be, that has not seen you tear man's floating home to
fragments, and whelm him with his dear ones in your gaping depths? Ralph
shuddered, and passed his hand across his brow, as though to erase some
terrible thought within it. The silent sky, crossed by those swift and
secret messengers the clouds, has doubtless a lesson for man's heart,
which it would be well if he would more often study; but even Mr Ruskin,
the great Self-elected Authority upon the subject, must acknowledge that
there are physical difficulties at the outset of this particular system
of spiritual education. Setting aside the fact, that it is only eagles
which can gaze upon the sun with undazzled eyes, the human vertebra is
not fitted for any prolonged investigation of the firmament; and if
one lies on one's back--I don't know whether I am singular in this
apprehension, but I am always afraid of some heavenly body slipping
out of space, and dropping upon one while in that exposed position. But
everybody can look upon the sea (from the vantage-ground at least of the
solid earth), and that is the next best page of nature to the sky.
There is something in its monotonous expanse which strikes most of us,
especially when we watch it alone and at night, with mysterious, and
perhaps religious awe. At all events, it reminds us, if there he any
materials for reflection within us, of the brevity of our span of life,
and of the littleness of its aims; a visible Eternity seeming to lie
before us, in the presence of which we are humbled. Under ordinary
circumstances, it was not likely that Derrick should experience these
feelings, for sea-faring folks, in spite of what has been written
of those who do their business in great waters, are least of all men
subject to such influences: but not only, as we have heard him tell Lady
Lisgard, did the sea at all times shew to him like one great grave, ever
since it had engulfed his Lucy, but upon this occasion he was regarding
it at the very spot, or near it, where the catastrophe had occurred.
Thus, though the moon had risen by this time, and bathed the deep, as
all things else on which it shone, in unutterable calm, Ralph's mental
vision beheld waves mountains high, and one fair fragile form, now
lifted on their foaming tops, now buried in their raging depths, but
always dead and drowned.
"Sorry to disturb you, sir, but will you favour me with half a pipeful
of baccy?" inquired a cheerful voice at his elbow. "Seeing you was
alone, and without your young woman--which is rare in these parts,"
continued the stranger, evidently one of the fishing community of the
place, for notwithstanding the fineness of the night, he was attired in
water-proof overalls--"I made bold, fellow-smokers being always ready to
help one another in that way, if in no other.--Thank you, sir. That will
save me going to the inn to-night, a visit my missis don't approve of."
"Is that the inn?" inquired Derrick, pointing to a little low-roofed
cottage just at the entrance to the Cove, and only raised a few feet
above high-water mark.
"No, sir; that's my own little place, William Forest, at your service.
If you happen to be in want of a boat, or one as can shew you where
to find the fossils and such like, I can do that as well as any man in
Coveton, let him be who he will."
"Then you are old Jacob Forest's nephew, I suppose, for he had no son,
and only one daughter, had he?"
"Just so, sir; my cousin Mary. A precious lucky woman she is. It was
through her I came to have the cottage, for my uncle made it over to me
when he moved to the grand house on the hill yonder, as my Lady Lisgard
gave to him. God bless her Ladyship, and good Sir Robert too, though
he's gone to heaven by this time, and don't want none of our wishes."
"Yes, yes," answered Derrick with irritation; "you Coveton folks can
talk of nothing but these Lisgards. Now, just dismiss them from your
mind while you answer a question I am going to ask you. You are old
enough to remember that terrible storm which took place here in the
September of '32, are you not?"
"Yes, sir, yes. And none of us that saw it is ever likely to forget it.
That was the very time when old Sir Robert"----
"Damn Sir Robert!" interrupted Ralph with energy. "If you would only be
so kind as to forget that respectable baronet, and all belonging to him,
while you answer me a simple question, I shall be greatly obliged to
you. Forgive me, mate--but my temper is not so good as my tobacco. Pray,
take another pipeful. Now, after that same storm in which the North
Star--that was the name of the ship, was it not?--was lost yonder, were
there many bodies washed ashore about here?"
"Dead uns, you mean, sir, of course?" answered the man hesitatingly.
"Well, yes, there was. I should think, taking them all together, for
they came in, some of them, weeks afterwards, I should think there was a
dozen or more; many of them lashed to spars, poor things. But it was no
use."
"And where were these unfortunate creatures put to?" inquired Derrick
after a pause.
"They were all buried in the churchyard yonder, sir. Sir Robert
Lisgard--but there, I forgot: you may read some of their names--those
at least as was identified--upon the tombstones. It was a sad sight them
burials. Strangers, and very poor folks mostly, coming from miles and
miles away to see their dead, who had but left home a few days before
for a New World, indeed, as they call it, but little thinking as it was
for that. You should hear Uncle Jacob talk of it."
"Ah, sad, indeed," echoed Derrick, rising from his seat. "I am glad to
have met you, mate; good-night, and thank you."
"Thank you, sir; I never tasted better baccy."
Derrick waited until his companion had descended to the very bottom of
the Cove; waited until he saw the cottage door open and shut--a mere
streak of light and shadow--and then followed on his steps; but having
reached the foot of the ravine, he took the winding path that led up its
opposite side towards the church and Jacob Forest's high-built dwelling.
CHAPTER V. THE MEMORIAL WINDOW.
|NOTWITHSTANDING that Coveton Church is "gritty," like all the rest of
the architecture in that locality, and presents the appearance of
an ecclesiastical edifice swathed in sand-paper, it is by no means
unpicturesque; while the spot on which it stands can compare for beauty
with any God'sacre in England. It is more than a hundred feet above the
level of the village, and commands a glorious view, which would be a
complete panorama, but for the steep wooded hill, which protects it from
the bitter north, and assists the genial climate to make a flower-garden
of the churchyard three parts of the year round. Even thus early in the
summer, had Ralph's visit been paid in the daytime instead of the night,
he would have seen it bright with bud and blossom, for almost every
grave was itself a little parterre, tended by pious hands. Poor wasted
human forms, but not seldom dearer to others than the handsomest and
healthiest, often come to Coveton to prolong for a little their painful
lives, until they flit away like shadows; indeed, if you read the
grave-stones, you will find three out of four are records of departed
Youth. The newly Married pass their honeymoons at the pleasant little
village, and those who have been sentenced to death by the Doctors come
also thither, and a strange and touching contrast they afford.
The low large moon, was flooding the sacred place with its soft
radiance, so that the inscriptions were as plain to be seen as in broad
noonday. From knoll to knoll, each roofing sacred dust, Ralph wandered,
not unmoved; for he too had lost a dear one by untimely death, and even
now was looking for the place where haply she might lie. He would have
felt it in some sort a comfort to know that her bones rested beneath the
rounded turf, rather than in yonder shifting deep, although, beyond
the wooded village with its scattered lights, it lay as motionless at
present as a silver pall. No less than thrice, he came upon the tombs of
those with whom he had been a fellow-passenger on board that doomed ship
so many years ago. Time had done its work with these, and they were not
easily deciphered; but he carefully spelled them out--John Robins, mate
of the North Star, which foundered at sea on the night of September
14, 1832. Poor Robins! Ralph remembered him very well. They had been
fellow-townsmen together at Bleamouth, a circumstance which had troubled
him at first, sailing as he did under a feigned name; but they had met
but once before, and the mate had, as it turned out, no remembrance
of him. But Ralph well remembered what uneasiness the possibility of
recognition had given him at the time, for it might have been supposed
that he had committed some disgraceful crime, which would cause him,
and what was worse, his wife and the Meades, to be looked upon askance
throughout the voyage.
But what did it matter now? What had anything mattered to that great
ship's company, so full of plans and projects for beginning life afresh
under other skies! Death had made sudden and swift provision for them
all.--Sarah Button, aged 69, and Henry, her son. The bodies of his four
children, and of Helen, his wife, who perished in the same storm, never
came to shore.--Ralph remembered the gaunt, strong old woman, who did
not hesitate, within a year of man's allotted span, to cross the ocean;
she and her son were as like as difference of age and sex could permit
of likeness; but the children, like the wife, were delicate and sickly.
It seemed somehow fitting enough that these two, though dead, should
have come to land; while the others, poor things, should have succumbed
to the stormy deep. The third inscription was even a more remarkable
one. Upon a huge recumbent slab, which evidently roofed the remains of
more than one person, were engraved these words: Beneath this stone are
laid the bones of those who were washed on shore from the wreck of the
North Star, but whose remains, from lapse of time, or other causes, have
not been identified. "Requiescant in pace."
A nameless grave, indeed, with not even the number or the sex of its
Unfortunate inmates specified! The slab bore the date of but a week or
two subsequent to the catastrophe, yet spoke "of lapse of time." How
impossible, therefore, to discover now whose bones had mouldered
beneath it into dust. His Lucy might be there, or she might not. It
was one of the few tombs that exhibited no trace of care; but a tuft of
violets, the sweet breath of which betrayed them, chanced to be growing
at the edge of it, and Derrick plucked them and placed them in
his bosom. He seemed to feel certain now that she had come ashore
somewhere; and why not here? How solemn and still it was! The very
air, though odorous and fresh, seemed full of the presence of the dead;
and Ralph's thoughts were with them, so that he quite forgot the purpose
with which he had visited the little village, light after light in which
was being quenched beneath him, for it was growing late.
Was it likely that there would be any record of the perished crew in the
church itself? They had almost all been in humble circumstances, being
emigrants, and therefore it was not probable that any such costly
memorial should have been erected; but still it was just possible.
The oaken door, studded with iron nails, was locked, and also a small
postern that led into a diminutive vestry, an offshot of the main
building. The windows, too, were fastened on the inside, or gave no
promise of opening, either in hinge or handle; but he climbed up to the
sill of one of them, for they were of no great height, and looked
in. The church was small, but very neat and pretty, with carved oaken
sittings, a handsome double pulpit, and a huge brass lectern, of the use
of which the present spectator knew nothing. Ralph had not seen so much
of the inside of a church for many a year, and he was fortunate in the
specimen thus accidentally submitted to his notice. The wealthy visitors
of the place had done their duty, and gratified their tastes at the same
time, by many a pious offering. A small but splendid organ, with
gilded and star-bespangled pipes, adorned the gallery on his left; and
immediately in front of him glowed a memorial window. There were other
smaller ones, erected, doubtless, in tribute to some of those dear ones
who had been laid so prematurely in the graveyard without; but this was
a very large and elaborate specimen of modern art. The designer, in
his admiration of the antique, had carefully reproduced every blemish
peculiar to an age wherein anatomy was never studied save by doctors,
and perspective was utterly unknown. The persons represented were the
four evangelists, all in the most gorgeous dyes, and as large as life;
but with their magnitude ceased almost all similarity to the human form
divine. Their spines were dislocated, their bones were distorted; and
where a limb was bent, it exhibited a sharp angle, like a broken branch.
In the background rose the mountains of Juda, of the same size and
shape as Christmas plum-puddings, with the sun setting luridly in the
midst of them, like snapdragon. Ralph, however, was quite of the opinion
of the great authorities upon church decoration, and thought this very
fine; he was also perfectly right in coming to the conclusion that such
a work of all must have cost somebody a good bit of money. The moonlight
streamed in behind him full upon it, and lit up all its splendid hues.
Besides the scrolls, with texts upon them, proceeding out of the mouths
of these individuals like ribbons from between the lips of a conjuror at
a fair, there was a gilded inscription underneath the whole, in highly
florid and decorated print. In the case of the texts, when you had
managed to master the first letter, the deciphering of the rest was,
to a person acquainted with the Scriptures, tolerably easy; though poor
Ralph was by no means "edified," and could make nothing of them at all;
but as for the inscription at the base, it looked to him at the first
glance as meaningless as the hieroglyphics on a tea-chest.
"Why cannot these good people write what they have to say in plain
English?" thought Derrick irreverently; "folks as come to church must
need to bring a copy-book of alphabets with them. Never in all my life,
and I've been among strangely-speaking creatures in my time, did I come
upon such queer-looking writing; and yet, one would think, being all
in such resplendent lines, it ought to be something worth reading
too.--Bless my soul and body, what's this?"
This last ejaculation was uttered with excessive vehemence, and the
excitement of the speaker was such that he could scarce keep his balance
on the narrow sill upon which he half knelt, half clung. His hot breath
had dimmed the glass, and as he wiped the moisture from it with his
handkerchief, his fingers trembled so with agitation that they tapped
audibly upon the pane. He glued his face to the window for upwards of a
minute, and when he took it away again, it was white as the marble font
that gleamed within. Had Ralph Derrick seen a ghost, that he slipped
down from that window-sill with such excessive precipitation, and
stood beneath it with his hat off, wiping his cold brow? "Am I awake or
dreaming?" murmured he, striking himself a sounding blow upon the chest.
"Was the brandy at yonder inn so strong that it has drugged me? or has
this moonlight, as some hold it does, been stealing away my wits? or has
the subject of my thoughts suggested names of which I had believed no
record survived?" Once more Ralph took his station at the window, and
this time did not leave it till he had not only made himself master,
although with pain and difficulty, of that part of the inscription which
had so arrested his attention, but had even transferred it, as well as
his position permitted, to his pocket-book, word for word:
[Illustration: 0107]
Some sacred words were added, but they told him nothing more concerning
those three persons, namely, his lost wife's father and mother, and
himself. Ralph Gavestone, alias Derrick, had been gazing upon his own
memorial window, set up to commemorate his death more than thirty years
ago!
Who had done it? Who could have had the will to do it? And who the
means? And how was it that he and the Meades were associated together
upon yonder painted glass, and yet not she who was the only bond between
them? Why was not the death of that sweet saint made mention of in a
place so fitting for its record, and where his own unworthy name had
found admittance; and his real name too--not the one which had stood
upon the passenger-list of the North Star? Into his perplexed and
wandering mind there came some half-forgotten tale, heard from he
knew not whom, of some Scotch laird who, gifted with the second-sight,
perceives a funeral pass by--the coffin borne by relatives of his,
and followed by troops of mourning friends--and marvels that among the
woeful crowd he does not recognise himself. Surely, thinks he, he should
be there, to shew respect to the common friend departed, whom he must
have known so well, although he misses no remembered face. Then on a
sudden it strikes him that he himself must be in the coffin--that it
is his own interment of which he is the witness--and his heart fails
within him because he feels that he has had his warning, and stands
indeed within the shadow of black death. Why Ralph should think of such
a tale in such a place may perhaps have been easily accounted for, but
once remembered, he applied it with lightning speed to the subject in
his mind, only in an inverse sense. The reason why his Lucy's name
was not upon that mystic monument, where those of her parents and her
husband were glowing in purple and gold, must be that she herself
was alive. Nay, who upon earth could have wished thus piously to
perpetuate their memory except Lucy herself? How she could have had the
power to do so, in so splendid and enduring a manner, would have been of
itself sufficiently miraculous, but that that circumstance was swallowed
up, like Pharaoh's serpents, by the still greater miracle--the fact that
she was among the Living!
For a moment, a sort of ecstasy seemed to possess this world-wearied
Wanderer, and all the moonlit scene to assume an aspect altogether
strange, such as earth and sea, however beautiful, can only shew to the
pure and hopeful; then a sharp thought pierced his brain. She might have
been alive when she caused that window to be set up, and yet not now. He
knew that those gorgeous dyes kept their bright colours for many a year
undimmed: supposing that he allowed five years (in which, by the by,
Ralph was very near the truth) as a reasonable time to have elapsed
between the shipwreck and the time that this memorial was erected--and
in less time, how was it possible she could have saved the money for
such a purpose--that would still leave more than a quarter of a century
between its erection and the present time. A quarter of a century! a
generation of human life! Time enough to die, to marry--but no, his
Lucy would never have done that. This window, shewing so tender a regard
after such a lapse of years, was evidence in some sort to the contrary;
and since he himself had never forgotten her, and only now, after
a lonely lifetime, was meditating another marriage, he felt no
apprehension upon that score. No; if his Lucy was alive, she was still
his, and free to welcome him as of old to her loving arms. The only
question with which he had now any real concern was, whether she still
lived? Henceforward, it would be his sole business in the world to find
this matter out. And first, she must certainly have been washed ashore
alive; and somewhere in these parts. Who, then, so fit to give him
information upon that point as old Jacob Forest, who had lived at
Coveton all his life, and at that time, in the very cottage on the beach
where his nephew now resided? So Ralph Derrick (for, like everybody
else, we may still continue to call him so) took the path that he had
originally intended to take after all, notwithstanding his marvellous
discovery, and made straight for Jacob's dwelling on the hill; no longer
with the intention of winning a bride, but of recovering a long-lost
wife.
CHAPTER VI. JACOB'S GUARD-SHIP.
|WHATEVER evils may happen unto me, may Heaven spare my reason," was the
heartfelt prayer of a wise and reverent man. He might have added--for
he was one of those who thought it no harm to ask of Him who watches the
sparrow's fall, for particular blessings--"And however I be racked with
pain by day, by night may I still enjoy my sleep." Next to madness, and
like enough with some folks to end in that, is the want of rest during
that period which should be the season of slumber, and which, if it be
not so, is a dread and dreary time indeed. There is many an honest soul
in the autumn of life who will protest in the morning, in the course
of a very tolerable breakfast, that she has not had a wink of sleep all
night, because she has heard a few consecutive hours recorded by the
church clock; but to lie awake indeed from eve to mom is not, thank God,
a very common experience, and still less often are any of us compelled
to endure it night after night for years. To live an existence the
converse of the rest of their fellow-creatures is the lot of more than
one trade--editors of daily newspapers, for instance, and burglars;
but to work by night is a very different affair from the lying awake
unemployed, but thinking, thinking, while nothing breaks the silence of
the muffled world save the howl of the watchdog and the weird monotony
of the wind. Yet there are some of us doomed to this sad fate, who
scarcely know what it is to spend an easeful night, and who snatch their
scanty dole of sleep by day.
Poor Jacob Forest was one of these. A long life of reckless exposure to
the elements, not, perhaps, unassisted by hard drinking, had brought
him to this sad pass. Thanks to his daughter, he wanted for nothing that
money could give him; but the once hale and venturous mariner was
now bedridden and racked at most times, but especially by night, with
rheumatic twinges. Mary herself never failed to visit him every summer;
and three days out of four some ancient comrade would painfully climb
the hill that led to his cosy little house, and hob and nob with him
by his bedside. But he was still sadly in want of company during the
night-watches; true, a nurse was paid to minister to his comforts during
that season, but she generally "dropped off" into a doze, sooner or
later; and even if she was awake, her gossip was of the tea-and-muffin
sort, rather than that description of talk which goes best with hot
grog, and was more suitable to a seasoned vessel, though laid up in
extra-ordinary, like old Jacob. Therefore it was, as the waiter at the
Royal Marine had observed, that visitors calling at ultrafashionably
late hours at the Guard-ship, as it was the proprietor's fancy to term
his place of residence, were especially welcome.
The home of this old veteran had been built, at his own request, of
wood, notwithstanding the remonstrances of his medical attendant, who
ascribed part of his patient's ailments to the fact, that his cottage
on the shore had been constructed of that material. But Mr Forest had
insisted upon having his way: next to one's own boat, he had argued,
there was nothing like a wooden house to make one feel at home in; nor
could he be moved from that position by the caustic rejoinder, that in
that case he might just as well get into his coffin at once. Nay, the
Guard-ship had been made still less air-tight than it otherwise would
have been by the ingenious introduction of a hinge running along one
side of the old man's bedroom on the ground-floor, the very wall of
which, in summer-time, could thereby be lowered flap-wise, exposing the
whole arrangement of his bower after the maimer of the better class of
doll's houses. With the eccentricity of taste so often exhibited in the
possessors of unexpected wealth, Mr Forest had "gone in," as the
phrase runs, in his prosperous old age, for curious poultry; and up his
slanting shutter (exactly as horses are introduced into a railway train)
used to be driven from the yard for his immediate inspection, as he lay
in bed, every sort of feathered fowl after their kind, as into a poultry
ark. The earliness of the season, combined with the lateness of
the hour, denied this exhibition (afforded to all visitors whenever
practicable) to Ralph Derrick, but the ancient mariner gave him the
heartiest of welcomes, as had been predicted. He had heard of Mr Derrick
more than once from Mary, and was exceedingly pleased to do him
honour; at which hint the nurse at once set forth the "materials" for a
drinking-bout on a little table which stood at the invalid's elbow, and
betook herself to an adjoining cabin, where she instantly went to bed
with her clothes on. Next to the danger from draughts, to which the
captain of the Guard-ship had already succumbed, he lay in nightly peril
of perishing by fire, since he smoked in bed almost unceasingly; and in
case of a spark igniting where it should not, the whole two-decker would
not have taken a quarter of an hour to become a heap of ashes; but this
apprehension, as the old woman was glad to think, was groundless upon
this occasion, when her master had a gentleman to keep him company, and
she left them with an easy conscience to their pipes and grog.
"So I hear you are rather sweet upon my good Mary," observed the old
sailor slyly, as soon as they were left alone. "She writes to me more
than most girls do to their fathers, you see, Mr Derrick, knowing I'm
all alone here, and so pleased to hear any news."
"Very right and very proper," returned Ralph quietly, "and a very good
girl, as you say, she is--although she is not a very young one."
"Young enough for some folks, at all events--eh, eh, sir?" chuckled the
old man. "Come, come--I know all about you, and what you're come here
about; I'm wide awake enough, I can tell you, although I'm abed. You've
run down to Coveton, sir, to 'ask papa.' There, haven't I hit it?"
"Well, the fact is, Mr Forest, the love seems rather more on my side
than hers. I don't deny that I had a great liking for your daughter, but
when a man knows that his love is not returned"----
"Eh, eh," interrupted the old Salt, pursing his lips and giving his
tasselled night-cap a pull upon one side, which gave him an expression
of much aimless intelligence; "but I don't understand this. You must
have done something, sir, to forfeit the good opinion of my Mary; for
certainly, at one time----But there, perhaps I'm saying too much. If it
ain't agreed between you and my Mary, then, may I ask, sir--not but that
I'm uncommon glad to see you, or any other gentleman, from nightfall to
any one of the small-hours, I'm sure--but may I ask what the dickens
brings you here?"
"Well, sir," replied Ralph, forcing a smile, "I happened to find myself
in these parts, and did not like to pass by without looking in upon the
father of Mary Forest, even though all should be off between us; and,
besides, I was told you are the likeliest man to be able to give me some
information about the wreck of the North Star, which happened about
thirty years ago, and the particulars of which, for a reason, I want to
know."
"Fill your pipe, then, and mix yourself another glass," cried the old
man, delighted to be called upon for his favourite yarn, "for it's a
story as you can't tell in a five minutes, nor in ten neither. The ship
you speak of, sir, was an emigrant vessel of more than a thousand tons,
as sailed on September 10, 1832"----
"I know all about the ship," interrupted Derrick impatiently, "for I had
a passage in her myself. I want to hear about the bodies that came on
shore."
"You were a passenger by the North Star?" ejaculated the old man
with amazement. "Why, it was said that every soul on board her perished
in the storm in which she went to pieces. Derrick, Derrick! Well,
now you mention it, I do remember the name, for I used to have that
passenger-list by heart. I cut it out of one of the papers at the time,
and having been so much concerned in the matter myself, though little
knowing that I should owe this house to that same wreck--built out of
its very timbers, as I might say--and almost all I have in this world.
But you know how all that came about, and what Sir Robert did for me and
mine, I dare say, mate?"
"Yes, yes--I have heard something of that. But can you tell me nothing
of what came ashore? You have said not a soul was saved; I suppose,
then, it was the surviving relatives who put up the gravestones to the
memory of the drowned, which I saw as I came through the churchyard?"
"That was just it. There were five men and three women--poor souls--laid
under the big stone next the yew-tree; nobody knew who they were. Sir
Robert paid for that too, if I remember right--let's see"----
"I hear of nothing but 'Sir Robert' and 'Sir Robert' in this village of
yours," interrupted Ralph impatiently. "Nobody has a story to tell in
Coveton but manages to bring that man's name in by head and shoulders.
Why the deuce do they do it?"
"Because he's been the making of the place--that's why, and because
there's a little gratitude left in our village still, I am glad to say,
sir, although it may have died out in the world," replied the old sailor
firmly. "Why, he not only built the roof that is now sheltering us,
but the village school, and the little pier at the Cove foot that has
sheltered many a fishing-smack since the time when my Lady"----
"Well, he didn't put up that great bit of painted glass in the church,
I suppose," broke in Derrick testily, "to the memory of Frank Meade and
others, did he? for that's what I want to get at, and nothing else."
"Did he not? Then who did it, I should like to know?" answered Mr Forest
sarcastically. "Who but himself and my Lady; and if it had been the
old times as I've heard tell of instead of now, there would have been
priests paid to pray for their poor souls until this day; ay, that there
would. He was never tired of shewing his thankfulness for the joy that
came to himself, and his pity for the woe that befell others upon that
awful night. It's an ill wind that blows nobody good, they say, and the
storm that carried the North Star to the bottom with all on board
save one--or two, I should now say, since I have no reason to doubt your
word, Mr Derrick"----
"Ay, tell me about the storm," said Ralph in an altered voice, and with
a face grown very white and still. "I will not interrupt you again, I
will not indeed. One poor creature came ashore alive, you said?"
"What! do you mean to say my Mary never told you? She must be a good
un to keep a secret even from her sweetheart; not that it's any secret
here, however they may treat it at Mirk; and if I didn't tell you
myself, you would hear it from the first man you met in Coveton, and
asked how Sir Robert Lisgard got his bride."
"Just so," said Derrick in a hoarse whisper; "therefore please to tell
me."
"Then help yourself to grog, mate, for you look cold. Some landlubbers
will have it that this room is cold, because of the hinge yonder; but a
seafaring chap like you----There, that should warm you. Well, on the
10th of September 1832, an emigrant ship of more than a thousand
tons"----
"A thousand devils!" cried Derrick, starting to his feet; "do you wish
to drive me mad? I tell you I was on board of her myself. Tell me about
the woman that came ashore lashed to the spar."
"What! then, you do know about it after all?" grumbled the old man,
removing his pipe from the corner of his mouth, an action which
represented the greatest amount of astonishment of which he was capable.
"Why the deuce did you bother me to spin you the yarn, then? A man at my
time of life ain't got much breath to throw away, I can tell you."
"How was she dressed? What had she on?" inquired Derrick, upon whose
ears his short-winded host's remonstrance had fallen unheeded.
"Devilish little," returned the old fellow gruffly: "nothing but a
petticoat, and what my Mary calls a body--but which I should call a
bust--and a sailor's pea-jacket, and that was not rightly upon her, but
tied between her and the spar, to save her dainty limbs, poor girl; and
it is my opinion that he was an honest-hearted chap as put it there, and
almost deserved to have her for himself. But there they were, brother
and sister, so that couldn't be. Moreover, she couldn't have got
better off than she did, that's certain. Lord, to think that there
poor, friendless, penniless, clotheless creature--as I had thought to
be almost lifeless too, when me and Sir Robert dragged her in from the
hungry waves--should come to be Lady Lisgard of Mirk Abbey---- What's
the matter with the man? Hi, nurse, hi! Confound the woman, how she
sleeps! Where the devil's my stick?"
Mr Jacob Forest's temper was hasty, but he had no intention of
inflicting corporal punishment on the respectable female who was too
deeply plunged in slumber to attend to his cries. He desired his stick
in order that he might smite the battered gong that hung at his bedside,
and upon which (besides using it as a gentle indication of her presence
being required) he was accustomed to execute an imitation of ship's
"bells" throughout the watchful night. Before, however, he could lay his
crippled fingers upon the instrument required, Ralph Derrick, who had
fallen from his chair upon the carpetless floor, began to recover his
senses, and with them his speech.
"Don't be alarmed, sir--don't call your nurse," said he, gathering
himself up; "it is only a sort of fainting-fit to which I am
subject--indeed I was born with them."
"And you'll die with them too, some day," thought old Jacob to himself,
as he stared with undisguised apprehension at his visitor's white face
and shaking limbs. "Don't you think you had better take a little more
rum--or stay, perhaps it's that that's done the mischief?"
"No, it's not that," answered Derrick bitterly, as he filled himself a
wine-glass of the liquor neat. "I'm better now, and I shan't give way
again. But I remember the man that took such care of the woman you speak
of, just before the vessel parted; and your mention of it gave me quite
a turn. I didn't know he was her brother; but he was much more careful
about her safety than his own--God knows."
"Very like," rejoined the old fellow, "and what I should have expected,
even if they had not been so near related. She was just the sort of
woman that any man worth his salt would be willing to lay down his life
for. His Christian name was Ralph, was it not, the same as yours?"
"Yes, it was," answered the other gravely. "Who was it that told you
that? I forgot, though; it is painted in the church-window."
"I found it out for myself," continued the old fellow cunningly, "long
before that there memorial window was put up; for my Lady never talked
about it even to Mary. But there was Ralph Gavestone written inside
the collar of the pea-cot, and I kept it for many a year myself until
the moth got in it, because I thought the sight of it might distress the
poor lady."
"Women soon get over that sort of thing," said Ralph in a grating voice.
"Well, yes; sooner or later, I daresay they do. And a very fortunate
thing it is, in my opinion, that such is the case. It would be very
bad for us all, and particularly for seafaring folk, if we never smiled
again because a party as we liked happened to be drownded, like some
king of England as my Mary once read about to me when I was down with my
first fit of the rheumatiz. Why, I've lost a couple of brothers myself
in that same way, and very good chaps they were; but why should I make
myself wretched because they're gone to Heaven? Take another pipe, man.
Why, you're not going to leave me surely?"
"Yes, I am, Jacob Forest," answered Derrick gloomily. "I have heard all
that I want to know, and more--much more! If you have any message for
your daughter, I'll take it to her. I am going off to Mirk at once."
"You may tell her--but no; I'll tell her myself, and not trouble you,"
answered the old fellow hastily, purple at least as much with rage as
rum. "I don't wish to be under the slightest obligation to a fellow
as looks in upon a poor cripple under pretence of friendship, and then
directly he's heard all he wants, and drank all he can, and had one
of his fits as he was born with, all as snug as can be--Hi, nurse, hi!
Damme, if the fellow hasn't actually left the front-door open!" And the
invalid applied himself to his gong with a fury that would have roused
the Seven Sleepers, had they chanced to have been slumbering (let alone
taking a nap with their clothes on) in the adjacent room. "Push my table
nearer," cried he to his terrified attendant, "and give me paper and
pens. Yes, my Mary particularly begged of me to let her know at once in
case he called, and I will do so; but I will also take leave to tell
her what a selfish scoundrel, in my opinion, he is; and I'll mention his
alarming fits. If she has found any reason to be dissatisfied with the
beggar, I'll give her some more; and mind, Nurse, this is posted before
seven o'clock. He shall find a cool reception at Mirk Abbey, or my name
is not Jacob Forest!"
Epistolary composition was not an accomplishment in which the old sailor
was an adept, and the mechanical part of the operation was a very slow
one with him, by reason of his infirmities; but nevertheless he managed
to indite a missive more or less to his mind, long before the early mail
went out from Coveton, and his faithful attendant did his bidding by
posting the same.
CHAPTER VII. THE TRIUMPHAL ARCH.
|IT is the morning that immediately precedes Sir Richard's fete-day, and
all at the Abbey are as busy as a hive of bees. Mrs Welsh is engaged in
incessant warfare with a "professed cook" of the male sex, who has been
imported from town with an army of myrmidons clad in white aprons and
head-pieces; and Mr Roberts carries the key of the cellar about
his person as religiously as though it were an amulet, exceedingly
regretting that the person who has undertaken to purvey the cold
collation to the tenantry does not also furnish the wine. For three
shillings or three shillings and sixpence the bottle, he argues, as
good a sherry as they have any right to taste might be set before Farmer
Beeves and that sort and yet we are about to give them the old "West
India," as stood old Sir Robert sixty shillings a dozen a quarter of a
century ago; nay, even four dozen of cobweb-bed port, the age of which
is absolutely unknown, have been set aside for the after-dinner tickling
of those rough palates, which would as lief or liever (thinks Mr
Roberts) have gin and whisky-punch. The gentle folks, to be sure, dine
with them, but you never catch them (Mr E. has observed) doing much in
the way of drink at a three o'clock dinner in a marquee. There is to be
dancing in the said tent, which has been boarded for that purpose, later
in the evening; and a ball will take place at the Abbey likewise, to
which all the "county" has been invited, and perhaps a little more.
It was a difficult matter even for Sir Richard, who had a specialty for
such solemn follies, to decide exactly what were "county families" and
what were not, and where the imaginary line that divided the ball-room
from the marquee was to be laid down. The social difference between the
person of the least importance that had the entre of the former, and
the person of the greatest importance who was consigned to the latter
was, of course, infinitesimally small, and the decision involved all the
difficulties with which the theologians afflict themselves concerning
the future position of the indifferently Good and the tolerably Bad.
What had Mr Jones, M.E.C.S. of Dalwynch, done that he should be admitted
into Paradise, while the crystal bar was obstinately interposed against
the entrance of Mr Jones, M.B.C.S., from the capital of Wheatshire?
Nothing of himself, was the baronet's stern decree; but it could be
proved beyond cavil that the former was remotely related to the Davey
Joneses of Locker Hall, a family of immense antiquity, and distinguished
in our naval annals; whereas the latter had no higher connection to
boast of than Thomas Jones, J.P. of Allworthy Court (himself only
admitted to the higher sphere by reason of a fortunate marriage), and
was therefore, as it were, predestined to sit below the salt.
There were, however, some exceptions even to this Draconian system.
Dr Haldane, for instance, was importuned with an earnestness that Sir
Richard would never have used to any peer of the realm, to honour this
occasion with his presence, and break through his stubborn resolve not
to set foot within Mirk Abbey; but the old man, although greatly moved,
declined the invitation. Madame de Castellan, too, notwithstanding she
was such a new-comer to the county, was called upon at Belcomb by
Sir Richard in person, and though she was not well enough to see him,
expressed herself by letter as hugely gratified by the object of his
visit; albeit at the same time she gave him to understand that all
festivities were just now distasteful to her, and indeed that she had
not the strength for them. "As for his Coming of Age," added the old
Frenchwoman, "she was not at all sure that such an event was a subject
of congratulation, though, if it had been his marriage-day, then indeed
she might have come, if it were only to make his young bride jealous."
Besides these two refusals, there were scarcely any. The popularity
of the Lisgard family, and the gorgeous scale of the promised
entertainment--the engagement of the Coldstream band was ascertained
beyond a doubt, and there was a whisper afloat concerning fireworks,
and even that the ornamental water was to be illuminated--combined to
attract not only everybody who was anybody, but a still vaster throng of
nobodies at all. Every inhabitant of Mirk, from the grandparents to the
babes in arms, for instance, were invited to take their fill of beef and
beer, if their digestion permitted of it, and if not, there was plenty
of rich plum-pudding; for besides the marquee, half the Park had been
put under canvas, in order to make the festivities as much as possible
independent of the weather, and presented the appearance of a miniature
camp, which would be still more the case upon the morrow, when the scene
was enlivened by the uniforms of the "Lisgard's Own," as some of the
"yellows" had wickedly christened the Mirk Volunteer Corps.
Altogether, there was every reason for Sir Richard's being in the best
of spirits. Master Walter, too, secretly conscious of having been a much
worse boy than he was known to be, and feeling that he had met better
luck, if not than he deserved, certainly than he could reasonably have
expected, was in high feather; he was deeply grateful to his mother that
she had abstained from reproaching him with the contents of the letter
written by Mr Abrahams, the settlement of whose claim she had taken upon
herself; and he well knew that the most welcome way in which he could
shew his gratitude would be taking part with a good grace in his
brother's triumphal entrance upon his twenty-first birthday. Rose, who
had obtained her ends, as well as full substantial forgiveness
(which was all she cared for) for the means employed, and foresaw the
prostration of half the young men of the county at her pretty feet upon
the morrow, was in excellent humour with herself, and therefore with the
world. As for Letty, it is unnecessary to say more than that she felt a
measureless content in the society of Mr Arthur Haldane, who passed all
his days just now up at the Abbey, having placed his valuable services
entirely at the disposal of Lady Lisgard, and generally found his duties
led him into the vicinity of her Ladyship's daughter. His taste for
table decoration and floral devices, though newly developed, was
really, Letty affirmed, of a very high order, and as she was perpetually
appealing to it, there can be no doubt that she believed what she
said. All at Mirk Abbey, in short, were, or seemed to be, in a state
of pleasurable excitement and joyous expectation, save its unhappy
mistress. In vain, Sir Richard tried to persuade himself that she was
only suffering from a feeling of responsibility--apprehensive lest
anything should go wrong in the arrangements of the all-important
morrow; in vain, Master Walter endeavoured to pacify his own mind with
the thought, that although a part of his mother's anxieties might have
been caused by his own misdoings, all trace of them would disappear so
soon as she should discover that his intention of divorcing himself from
the turf, as well as all other kinds of gambling, was as sincere as
it really was. Letty did not attempt to gloss over the fact, that her
mother looked both ill and wretched, but rather reproached herself that
though this was the case she could not help feeling happy in the company
of her lover. Perhaps it was the contrast to the festive air worn by
all around her that made my Lady's face look so pinched and woeful; but
certainly, as the fte-day approached, her cheeks grew more and more
pallid, and her eyes sank in deepening hollows.
On the morning in question, the postbag, through some delay on the
railway, did not arrive until the family were at breakfast; my Lady,
with her scarcely touched dry-toast before her, watched Sir Richard open
it, and distribute the contents with an anxiety she could not conceal.
"There is nothing for you, dearest mother," said he, in answer to her
inquiring looks.
"Who, then, is that for?" returned she, pointing to an unappropriated
letter he had placed at his left hand.
"Only a note for Forest, which I daresay will keep till we have left
the table," said he smiling; "although, if you had your way, I know she
would be attended to before everybody. It has the Coveton post-mark, and
doubtless comes from old Jacob."
"Who is ill," said my Lady rising. "I do not see why Mary's
correspondence should be delayed more than that of any one else. I have
finished my breakfast, and will take it to her at once."
When she had left the room, Sir Richard remarked with asperity, that his
mother's kindness really rendered her a slave to "that woman Forest."
"That is so," assented Master Walter; "and I have of late observed that
her spirits are always at the lowest when she has been having a confab
with Mary. Is it possible, I wonder, that being balked of that fellow
Derrick, Mistress Forest can have taken up with any new-fangled
religious notions--I have heard of old maids doing such things--which
are making her miserable, and my mother too?"
"For shame, Walter!" cried Letty. "Do you suppose mamma is capable of
any such folly?"
"I don't believe for a moment that she is a victim to any delusion
herself," explained Walter; "but she sympathises with everybody she has
a liking for, and the society of any such morbid person would be very
bad for her. Between ourselves, I don't think that Madame de Castellan
coming here has done her any good. That's a precious queer old woman,
you may depend upon it. Not only did she decline to permit old Rachel
and her husband to continue to sleep at Belcomb, which, considering
its loneliness, one would have thought she would have been glad to do,
instead of their occupying the lodge a quarter of a mile away; but it
is said that she absolutely dismissed her French maid the day after her
arrival, and therefore lives entirely alone!"
"No wonder, then, she was so uncommonly anxious to get Mary," observed
the baronet; "and I am sure I wish she may, for my mother's sake. I
have no doubt they are now both closeted together over that old dotard's
letter from Coveton. As if there was not enough for my poor dear
mother to do and think of just now, without bothering herself with her
waiting-maid's father's rheumatism."
Sir Richard was right: my Lady and her confidential servant were at
that very moment in the boudoir perusing with locked doors old Jacob's
letter. From it Lady Lisgard gathered what had happened at Coveton as
certainly as though the writer had been aware of it all, and written
expressly to inform his daughter.
"He has found it out," said she with a ghastly look. "He had that fit,
as your father calls it, at the moment when he learned for the first
time that the girl who came ashore alive and myself are one and the
same. Poor Ralph, poor Ralph!"
"Dearest Mistress, I think it is Poor You who are most to be pitied.
Great Heaven, he will be here to-night, or to-morrow at latest!
To-morrow--in the midst of all the merry-making about Sir Richard."
"Yes, Sir Richard!" exclaimed my Lady bitterly. "The poor bastard that
thinks he is a baronet! But let him come, let him come, I say." My Lady
rose from her seat with clenched fingers and flashing eyes. "I will
defend my children with my life--nay, more, with my honour. If I perjure
myself to save them from shame and ruin, will not God pardon me? Who
is there to witness against them save this man alone? And is not my
word--my oath--as good as his?" She stepped to the little bookcase
that ran round the room; and from the corner of it, half-hidden by
the framework, took down a dusty volume--one of a long series, but the
remainder of which were in the library. It was the Annual Register
for the year 1832. Under the head of "Shipping Intelligence," where the
tersest but most pregnant of all summaries is always to be found--the
deaths of hundreds of poor souls, the misery of thousands of survivors,
and the sudden extinction of a myriad human hopes, all recorded in a
single sentence--was written: "In the storm of the 14th September, the
emigrant vessel, North Star, foundered off the South Headland with all
hands on board--supposed to have sprung a leak." Then a few weeks later,
the following paragraph: "From the North Star, emigrant ship, supposed
to have been lost on the night of the 14th of last month, with all hands
on board, there came on shore at Coveton, lashed to a spar, a solitary
survivor, a young woman. Although much exhausted and bruised, she had
received no vital injury, and her recovery is said to be assured. Her
case excites much interest in the locality in question."
The "solitary survivor!" continued my Lady thoughtfully. "Who is there
to gainsay it, save this man?"
"Your own heart, dearest mistress," answered the waiting-maid solemnly.
"That would not permit you to deny him, even if your conscience would.
Could you meet him to-morrow face to face"----
"No, no," exclaimed my Lady shuddering; "I never could. I was mad
to think of such a thing--so mad, that I trust the wickedness of the
thought may be forgiven.--I am to drive into Dalwynch this afternoon
about--what was it, Mary?"
"About your watch, which ought to have come home last evening, my Lady."
"Yes, my watch. There is not any time to lose."
"Indeed not, dear mistress: not an hour, I should say, if I were in your
place. I tremble to look out of window, lest I should see him coming
yonder over the Windmill Hill."
"Yes, fixed as fate, and furious with her who has deceived him. Poor
fellow, who can blame him? I can see him now."
"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed the waiting-maid, fleeing to the window.
"Haste, haste away, or there will be murder done!"
"He is not there," returned my Lady in a low, calm voice, "but I see him
all the same. Pallid with scorn, yet bent on avenging himself. Resolved
to claim his wife at any hazard, even in spite of herself. It will be
terrible that he should be here in any case; but if he found me here,
as you say, there might be murder done. Not that I fear for myself, God
knows: I am too wretched for that."
"Oh, my Lady, had you not better start at once?"
"No, Mary; I must go first to Dr Haldane's, since the time has come. But
if, in the meantime, this--this unhappy man should arrive, be sure you
send the carriage for me at once to the doctor's house. I can escape him
that way for certain. Perhaps, then, I may never cross this threshold
any more--never clasp my dear ones in my arms and call them mine
again--never say: 'My own Walter--Richard--Letty.' How can I bear to
think upon it! Don't cry, Mary, for you see I do not. You know what
to do in case he comes; the carriage to Dr Haldane's instantly: and
afterwards--we have settled that long ago."
"I shall forget nothing, dearest mistress. If I live, all will be done
that you have resolved upon."
"Dear Mary, trusty friend, may Heaven reward you."
My Lady had her bonnet on by this time, but lifted up her veil to kiss
her faithful servant. "If by God's gracious will, somehow or other this
misery should after all have no evil end, Mary, how happy we shall be!
How we shall talk of this with our arms round one another's necks! There
is a friend, says the Scripture, which sticketh closer than a brother;
but I have found a servant better even than such a friend. Good-bye,
dear; if it should chance to be 'Good-bye.' Don't weep, don't speak. See
that my path is clear, that I meet no one----Great Heaven, what is that
knocking? Can he be come already?"
"No, dearest, no," sobbed the poor waiting-maid. "They are putting up
the triumphal archway, that is all."
She left the room to see that there was nobody in the passage, or on the
back-stairs, by which her mistress was about to leave the house.
"The triumphal archway," muttered my Lady with tearless aching eyes. "I
would to Heaven they were putting the nails into my coffin instead."
CHAPTER VIII. FLED.
|MY Lady returned to the Abbey at the usual luncheon-hour, and partook
of that meal (if sitting at the table can be called so doing) with the
rest of the party; while Mary Forest kept watch at the boudoir window,
with her mistress's opera-glasses in her hand, scanning the Windmill
Hill.
There was no likelihood of Derrick's coming for hours yet, since he
had not arrived already by the same train that had brought old Jacob's
letter; but there was just a possibility of this. However, he did not
come. The unfrequented road, which on the morrow would be thronged with
the vehicles of Sir Richard's guests, had not a single passenger. It
was one of the two ways we have spoken of leading to Dalwynch, and
the shorter in point of distance, although not of time, because of the
winding hill; but Derrick, coming from the direction of Coveton (not by
the Dalwynch line, but another railway), could approach Mirk by no other
route.
Immediately after luncheon, the carriage drew up at the door.
"I will not offer to go with you, dearest mother," said Letty, "because
there is so much to do at home, and the more because you will be
absent yourself. But you will come back as soon as you can--there's a
darling!--won't you? Nothing goes on as it should at the Abbey without
you."
"Yes, dear Letty! I will come back as soon as I can."
My Lady cast a wistful look at her three children. She would have given
a thousand pounds to have thrown her arms around their necks, and wept
her fill; but such an indulgence might have cost them and her far more
than that, or anything which money could estimate. What if her strength
should fail her--if she should "break down," as the saying is, at this
supremest moment? She could only trust herself to nod and smile.
The whole party went out to the front door to see her off. The two young
ladies standing on the hall steps with their arms round one another's
waists (although I much doubt if they had grown to be the friends that
they once were); Master Walter kissing his white hand to her with all
the grace and fondness of a lover; Sir Richard handing her into the
carriage with stately but affectionate courtesy. "The lower road--to
Lever's the watchmaker's in High Street," said he to the coachman, "and
don't spare the horses." Then, as the carriage drove away, he observed
to the others: "What a strange freak it is of mamma to be going to
Dalwynch at such a time as this about her watch. However, she ought to
be back by five o'clock at latest."
The carriage did return even before that hour; but it did not contain
my Lady. It only brought back a letter from her, which the footman was
instructed to place at once in the hands of her elder son. The
man, however, had some difficulty in finding Sir Richard, who was
superintending some finishing-touches that were being given to the
interior of the marquee--the arrangement of certain flags over the place
he was to occupy on the morrow. Sir Richard tore open the note, fearing
he knew not what; then uttered a tremendous oath. His people stared,
for unlike some "young masters," the baronet scarcely ever misbehaved
himself in that way. "Where did you leave my Lady, sirrah?" inquired he
roughly of the footman.
"At the railway station, Sir Richard. Her Ladyship took the train for
town."
"Where is Miss Letty? Walter--Walter," cried the baronet, "come here."
"Hollo, what is it?" answered the captain, a little sulkily, for he was
engaged in setting up an emblem composed of various weapons of war
at the other end of the marque; and pretty Polly, the gatekeeper's
daughter, was handing him up certain highly-polished swords, and he was
playfully accusing her of using them in transit as mirrors. "You haven't
found out a mistake in the almanac, and that you came of age the day
before yesterday, have you?"
"Worse than that," returned poor Sir Richard simply. "Read that, man.
What, in Heaven's name, are we to do now?"
"Let us go in and see Letty," said Walter gravely, after he had read the
note. "Perhaps she knows something about it; and if not, you may take
your oath that Mary Forest does."
"Do you, Walter? Don't trifle with me," said the baronet earnestly;
"if any business respecting yourself has taken my mother away, I conjure
you to tell me all."
"No, Richard. I give you my word that I know of no reason for this
extraordinary conduct. It is true that that letter from Moss Abrahams
gave her some annoyance, but that matter was settled long ago. I am as
surprised and dumbfounded as yourself."
"Dearest Richard!"--here he again perused my Lady's note--"urgent
necessity compels me to leave home for a time. You will have the
explanation on the 15th. That there may be many, many happy returns
of to-morrow to you, dear boy, is the heartfelt prayer of your loving
Mother."--"How extraordinarily strange! When is the 15th? Let's see."
"The day after to-morrow," rejoined Sir Richard gloomily. "What will
tomorrow be without our mother? Good Heaven, how dreadful is all this!
Is it possible, think you, to put the people off?"
"Utterly out of the question, Richard; we should require five hundred
messengers."
They were walking on the lawn, and had now arrived at one of the open
windows of the great ball-room, a splendid apartment, although the
highly-decorated pink ceiling had been likened by a pert young architect
(who wanted to persuade the baronet to let him pull down the Abbey,
and build another one) to the ornaments on a twelfth-cake. Mrs Walter,
Letty, and Arthur Haldane were all very busy here, but the last two
not so entirely occupied with the work in hand as to be unaware of one
another's presence. At another time, Sir Richard would have been annoyed
at seeing them so close together, and obviously so well pleased with
the propinquity, but now he was really glad to meet with the young
barrister, for whose judgment he had a great respect.
"Letty--Arthur," cried he, "read this. Do either of you know, can either
of you guess, what on earth it means?"
"Mamma not to be here to-morrow!" ejaculated the former, when she had
read the note. "I can scarcely believe my eyes." But at the same time
there came into her mind that vague but saddening talk which her mother
had held with her but lately, when my Lady had said her malady was not
one the doctors could cure. Arthur read the note twice over, not so much
to master its contents, perhaps, as to frame his own reply to what had
been asked of him.
"I certainly do not know," said he, "what can have taken your dear mother
at such a time as this. We may be sure, however, it is no mere freak of
fancy, but that it is done for what she believes to be your good."
"Our good!" broke forth Sir Richard impatiently. "How can it be
for good that I should be placed to-morrow in a position the most
embarrassing that can be conceived? What am I to say when people ask me
'Where is your mother?' Imagine what they will think of her absence on
such an occasion, the most important"----
"Let us rather imagine, Richard," interrupted Letty, laying her hand
upon his arm, "what our dear mother must be suffering at this moment.
As Arthur says, it can be no trivial matter that takes her thus suddenly
away from us; and although she may have over-estimated its urgency, we
may be sure that it is her anxiety for others--that is, for us--which
has caused her to do so. Mamma is incapable of a selfish action."
"I am not speaking for myself alone, Letty," returned the baronet hotly.
"I did not accuse you of doing so, Richard. What I mean is this, that
however much you may feel this misfortune, mamma has to bear the burden
of its cause--whatever that may be--alone. She is thinking at this
moment of the alarm and sorrow she has excited here, and we maybe sure
is feeling for us at least as much as we feel for ourselves; and in
addition to that, she has this trouble to bear, at even the nature of
which we cannot guess."
Sir Richard frowned, and did not reply; but Arthur unobserved stole
Letty's hand, and pressed it, in token of his loving approval. "And who
is the person who is to give us the explanation on the 15th, think you?"
said Walter. "I'll wager--or at least I would do so, if I hadn't given
up betting--that Mistress Forest can tell us if she would."
"Then let us send for her at once," cried Sir Richard hastily; "anything
is better than this suspense."
When the servant called for this purpose had been despatched: "I do not
presume," said Arthur gravely, "to dictate what is your duty; but if the
case were mine, Sir Richard, and my mother had expressly stated that her
motives would be explained at a certain date, I should hardly like to
extract them beforehand from her confidential servant. Forgive me, for
I know I am addressing one who is himself a man of the most scrupulous
honour."
The baronet bit his lip. "I don't know, I'm sure, Haldane. It is true,
since my mother has gone to town, that nothing we can do can bring her
back in time for----But at all events there can be no harm in asking how
long she is likely to be away.--Ah, here is Mistress Forest. We want to
hear about my Lady, Mary. She has gone to London, it seems, and we are
not to know why until the day after to-morrow. Now, we are not going to
ask you her reasons."
"Thank you, Sir Richard," said Mistress Forest, her puckered eyes
looking really grateful.
"But what we do desire is, that you will tell us how long she will be
away."
"I am sure I can't tell, sir; Heaven knows I wish. I could," answered
the waiting-maid fervently. "She sent a big box over to Dalwynch by the
carrier yesterday: that's all I know about it."
"Then she herself is not going to give us the explanation in person, you
think?" said the baronet gloomily.
"No, Sir Richard: not in person; at least, I believe not. Somebody else
is going to do that for her."
"And you know who that will be?" returned the young man sternly.
"I think--at least; yes, I know, sir; but it's not me," added the
waiting-maid hastily. "I hope I know my place better than that. But my
Lady bade me say nothing about it, and, with all respect, wild horses
should not tear it from me."
Here Mistress Forest, who had always entertained considerable terror of
her austere young master, could not forbear casting a beseeching glance
towards Arthur Haldane.
"We already know from Mr Haldane's own lips," observed Sir Richard
with emphasis, and looking in the same direction, "that he is not in
possession of the secret of my Lady's departure."
"I certainly said as much," returned Arthur haughtily; and with that,
either because he was really annoyed, or did not wish to be further
questioned, he stepped out upon the lawn, and walked away.
"All this is very unsatisfactory, and strange, and bad," said the
baronet, after a considerable pause. "But nothing is to be got,
it seems, by asking questions. We must do then the best we can for
to-morrow without my mother--you Letty, assisted by Mrs Walter here,
must do the honours of the Abbey in her place--and I wish to Heaven,"
added he, as he turned upon his heel, "that the day was well over."
"What a nice agreeable temper Richard has, when anything goes wrong,"
observed Walter, twirling his moustaches. "I'm hanged if I don't think
it's that which has driven my mother away from home. She naturally
enough concludes he will be unbearable when he becomes the master."
"Fie, fie, Walter!" said Letty. "I think it is much more that she can no
longer bear to listen to the cruel things she hears her two sons say
of one another. She has spoken to me of it more than once of late with
tears in her eyes."
"Well, Sir Richard has a bad temper, Letty, there's no doubt about
that," observed Mrs Walter, striking in in defence of her husband.
"Yes; yet there are many things worse than that, Rose, and mamma has
been accustomed to Richard all his life; but she has had trouble upon
trouble for the last six months, as I am sure you cannot deny, and it
is likely in the state of health to which I know she is reduced, that
she feels herself totally unequal to the part she would be expected to
play to-morrow."
"I think Mr Haldane knows more of the matter than he chooses to say,"
observed Rose, at once carrying the war into the enemy's camp.
"I don't think you quite understand him," returned Letty, executing the
same strategic movement; "anything like duplicity is altogether foreign
to his character."
"He looks simple enough certainly," remarked Rose quietly. "But I
noticed that when Sir Richard asked him whether he knew, or could
guess what had taken Lady Lisgard from home, he confined himself to
replying that he did not know."
Letty made no answer, but applied herself with heightened colour to
the occupation in which her brothers had interrupted her. Walter smiled
sardonically, thinking of certain female savages he had been reading of
that morning in some paper in the Field, apropos of rifle-grooves, who
were expert in propelling poisoned darts from blow-pipes; then catching
sight of his handsome face in one of the mirrors with which the
ball-room was wainscoted, he nodded, as though he recognised some friend
he was constantly in the habit of meeting, yet was always glad to see,
and sauntered out. At first, he made mechanically for the marquee, but
stopping himself, not as it seemed without some contention in his own
mind, he turned his steps to some other part of the Park. "No," said he
to himself gaily, "I will be a good boy. It is true, I have had devilish
hard lines lately, but then it was partly deserved. How, the poor mother
has had just as hard, and has not deserved them a bit. I will do nothing
that can cause her trouble now--not even run the risk of a bit of
harmless flirtation, for there always is a risk about that, somehow.
I wonder whether Letty was right about her going away; I'm sure I can't
help Richard quarrelling with me--he will do it. And then there was
that matter of Moss Abraham's--upon my life it must have been very
trying to the dear old lady. And then there was my affair with
Rose--humph! Well, I'm very sorry, Heaven knows, if my conduct has in
any way contributed to such a catastrophe; but it's something, my dear
mother, let me tell you, when your troubles are of that sort that you
can run away from them. What an infernal fool I have made of myself in
every way!"
CHAPTER IX. THE UNINVITED GUEST.
|OLD Jacob Forest had made a well-grounded complaint when he cried out
with such vehemence that that fellow Derrick had actually left the front
door open, and the Guard-ship and his rheumatism more exposed to the
rigour of the elements even than usual; but to do his visitor justice,
this rudeness was not committed with intention; Ralph knew not what he
was doing; he was out of his mind with fury and despair.
"Damn her!" screamed he, plucking the little bunch of violets from where
he had placed them so tenderly but an hour before; "so she was false,
too, like the rest of them. She had no more heart in her than a woman
of stone; and I have been worshipping her all my life, just as a savage
worships his idol. No wonder I took to that young son of hers--how like!
how like!--and like, too, in his selfish soul! Why, I was calling
yonder Sea a while ago a cruel smiling traitress--because in her wrath
I thought that she had swallowed this woman up. But the sea is honest
enough compared to her. She puts up painted panes to my memory, does
she, with the money of the very man she has married! Hypocrite! Wonton!
Liar! She has held converse with me, knowing who I was, across that
man's very grave, and let me pour my heart out before her, drop by drop,
when she might have stanched it with a word. How could she do it? How
dared she do it?--she that is a God-fearing woman, forsooth! But I
suppose that all is fair against a castaway. Let her look to it now,
though. Ralph Gavestone is not a man, as I told her then, to be crossed
with impunity--far less to be cajoled, betrayed, insulted,
Wronged! Richard Lisgard, too!--Sir Richard, as the bastard calls
himself!--your hour of bitterness is drawing nigh too, and I will not
spare you. There is no memory now of the beloved Dead to stay my hand;
there is the knowledge of the treacherous living to make the blow all
the surer and the more fatal. Love--nay, even the impress of where I
thought love had lain within me, but it was not so--is cancelled out,
and Mercy with it. Friendship--bah, I have found out what that is worth!
There is nothing left me, nothing in the world, now, except Revenge!
Lord it, Sir Richard, for yet a few hours more, among your truckling
neighbours, your fawning tenants, for your time is short indeed. They
may be your humble and obedient servants still, but what will they think
of you, what will they say of you, behind your back, when they come to
learn who you are? If your mother has the right to rule at Mirk, then
I will rule there too: and you shall serve; and if not--then she is my
wife still, and leaves you for me. There will be a downfall for
your pride! Lady Lisgard of Mirk Abbey to be claimed by a 'drunken
brawler'--do you suppose that I forget such words as those--and forced
to be once more plain Lucy Gavestone, for the wife of a vagabond like
me has scarcely the right to be termed 'madam.' The law will give her to
me: there is no doubt of that. The righteous Law, which is to be
always upheld--remember that, my game-preserving friend--no matter what
hardships it may entail upon individuals, or even what injustice it may
commit in exceptional cases. How sweet it is to remember such words of
wisdom, against which, in my ignorance, I was wont to fight tooth and
nail. You will not forbid me the Abbey, I suppose, when I come thither
to claim my wife. To-morrow, or next day at furthest, will introduce you
to your stepfather; for I have made up my mind to acknowledge you, just
as though you had been born in lawful wedlock."
Breathing forth these cruel threats, and feeding upon their fulfilment
in his mind, Ralph Derrick lay awake for hours in his chamber at the
Royal Marine, and had hardly fallen asleep when the omnibus started
for the morning train. The horn, and noise of the wheels aroused him,
and he leaped up out of bed with an oath, because he knew that he had
missed that, his earliest opportunity, of getting to Mirk. However,
having rung his bell, he learned from the waiter that it would be
quite possible yet, by taking a carriage and four horses, to reach the
junction before the Coveton train, which, besides, had to wait there for
the mid-day mail. "Of course," said the waiter, rubbing his hands,
and speaking with a hesitation induced by the contemplation of Ralph's
scanty kit, "it will be a very considerable expense, and perhaps"----
"Curse the expense, and you too!" ejaculated the whilom gold-digger in
his old flaming manner. "Here's a ten-pound note; and let my bill be
settled and the horses put to within five minutes."
"But your breakfast, sir?"
"A glass of brandy and a piece of bread: that's all I want; quick,
quick!"
The waiter departed at full speed--his anxiety to execute Derrick's
orders being at least equalled by his desire to communicate them to his
mistress and the chambermaids. They were only accustomed at the Royal
Marine to the Newly Married, who were rarely in a hurry, and never
broke their fast upon brandy and bread; and to these Ralph certainly
afforded a lively contrast.
The four horses carried him along at a great rate, and the old-fashioned
carriage swung from side to side down every hill, so that if motion
could have soothed his perturbed spirit, on the principle of like to
like, it should have grown calmer with every mile. But fast as he sped,
his thoughts flew on before him--and in them he was already at Mirk
Abbey, denunciating, exposing, Avenging, until physical inaction became
intolerable, and thrusting his head and shoulders out at the window,
he bade the astonished post-boys pull up, and let him out, for that he
would have no more of such travel. Then once more he pursued his way on
foot, and had walked two-score of miles before he put up for the night,
at one of the same inns at which he had stopped upon his way down to
Coveton.
But exercise, even in this violent degree, could now no longer avail
him. He was still consumed with bitterness and anger, and the desire of
vengeance. He could not sleep; and he had lost all appetite for food. He
drank, as he had never drunk since he was in Cariboo; glass after glass
of raw spirits, to the wonder of his tolerably well-seasoned host, who
looked to have him for quite a permanent guest, overtaken, as it seemed
must come to pass, by delirium tremens. Brandy, however, could now
affect him nothing; except perhaps that it added fuel to his rage. On
the third day, he grew impatient of his slow progress, and took the
train upon a line of rails that brought him within a dozen miles of
Mirk. As soon as he got out at the station, he inquired for a vehicle to
take him to his journey's end.
"You wish to go to Mirk Abbey, do you not, sir?" said the porter
respectfully (for Ralph always travelled first class).
"That's my business, and not yours," retorted Derrick angrily, but
without surprise; for it seemed to him natural enough that the purpose
which was consuming his whole being should be recognised in his external
features.
"Nay, sir; I meant no harm. It is not business, but pleasure, that
is taking all the world to Mirk to-day. Everything here that has four
wheels, and even that has two, has been already engaged; but if you
don't mind waiting an hour or so, there will be a return-fly."
But, with a contemptuous oath, Ralph had already resumed his journey
on foot, looking neither to left nor right, but keeping his eyes
steadfastly fixed on the wind-mill, he could even now see afar off,
and which he knew crowned Mirkland Hill. The afternoon was already far
spent, and by the time he reached the spot in question the dusk had
already deepened into dark. On one side of the road lay the white gate
and little hedge belonging to Belcomb; on the other, the great Windmill,
with its dilapidated wall still unrepaired, and over which a young man
was leaning and looking towards the valley with longing eyes. Ralph
followed the direction of his gaze, and perceived the noble outlines
of Mirk Abbey "picked out" in lines of many-coloured flame--its every
window aglow with light, and the shadowy Park itself islanded with two
large shining spots, which old experience taught him at once were walls
of canvas well lit up within.
"What is going on there?" asked he of the miller, for such the young
man's dress proclaimed him to he.
"Why, victuals and drink, to be sure," replied the lad, in a tone that
bespeaks a grievance; "and music and pretty girls to dance to it, and
fireworks, and I don't know what all. And here am I, the only young man
in the parish that is not to enjoy himself at it: just because Master
Hathaway happens to have a pressing order in hand, I am to keep the
mill going all to-night. I don't say I wishes it to rain--for that would
spoil everybody's sport--but if the wind would be so good as to fall,
and stop the mill, why, I wouldn't whistle to try and set it agoing
again."
"Yes, by the by," said Ralph, "I heard something at the station about
some goings-on at Mirk, but I didn't take much heed. What is it, lad?
And why are they all so gay down yonder at the Abbey?"
"Why, it's Sir Richard coming of age, to be sure," answered the lad.
"You must hail from a darned long way off, not to know that; and yet I
seem to know your face. Why, you're Mr Derrick, ain't you, as used to
lodge at the Lisgard Arms? I thought so. Well, you'll find nobody there
now, for Steve has been taken into favour again--thanks to my Lady, I
believe--and is up at the Park with the rest; and they won't let you
into the grounds, you know; so you might just as well stop here, and
have a chat with a poor fellow as"----
Striking his stick with violence against the ground, Ralph strode away
down the hill. This, then, was the very time for him to come upon the
inmates of Mirk Abbey, while they were holding their heads highest,
and to cast them down to the very dust. If his determination had needed
strength, if the sharpness of his revenge had wanted an edge, both had
been supplied by the careless words of the miller's boy. Before the
night was out, not only that lad, but all the parish, nay, all the
County, should learn that he, Ralph Derrick, could not only be no longer
forbidden to enter the Lisgards' doors, but would perhaps even rule
within them as the husband of my Lady herself.
The village, as he had been forewarned, was as deserted as Auburn
itself, and the inn fast closed. But the iron gates of the Abbey
were flung back, as though to welcome all comers, and the rheumatic
lodge-keeper and his wife had betaken themselves with their pretty
daughter to the festive scene within. So Ralph strode, undenied, up the
long dense avenue, made darker by the glancing lights at the far end,
like some embodiment of Misfortune, about to paralyse Youth and Hope
with a word. The fairylike splendours of the scene before him seemed to
him like a house of painted cards, which, at his finger-touch, should
collapse in utter ruin; his frown should silence all those melodies that
jarred so on his reluctant ears; that merriment should be turned into
wailing, or still better, into scornful laughter. The scene of pride
should be made a place of shame.
No one of all the crowd of holiday-makers seemed to take notice of
his presence, though he carried with him, from spot to spot, the only
scowling face that was to be seen among them. He stood at the opening
of the great marquee, and watched the dancers; his evil eye scanned each
gay couple as they whirled before him, but settled upon none whom it
had come to wither. Sir Richard and his brother had inaugurated the
proceedings there by taking part in a few dances, but had then withdrawn
themselves to the ball-room within. In the second tent, reserved for
the humblest class of guests, the mirth was already growing somewhat
uproarious; but there was one among the company, who, though he took
two glasses for other folk's one, looked as sober as an undertaker; and
Derrick came behind this man and plucked his arm.
"Steve," said he, "I want a word with you. Come out with me, and leave
these capering idiots."
The landlord of the Lisgard Arms did not even make a pretence of being
glad to recognise his late lodger: he had been received, as Hathaway's
lad had stated, into favour at the Abbey once more, through the
intercession of my Lady, but he was still upon his good-behaviour, and
it excessively annoyed him to see the original cause of Sir Richard's
displeasure with himself once more at Mirk, and intruding where he was
least welcome. However, the two withdrew together apart from the crowd.
"What is it, Derrick? I think it is foolish of you venturing here. I am
sorry to say that I have promised not to receive you again at my inn. I
did not dream of your coming back, or else I would never have done so."
"Don't trouble yourself about that, Steve. If I stay at Mirk at all, it
will be here, at the Abbey."
"At the Abbey! You have been drinking, Derrick. Now, take my advice, and
be off; at all events, for the present. To-day, when everybody is being
entertained by Sir-Richard, folks would resent any insult put upon the
family, I can promise you--it's the worst day you could possibly have
selected to force your way in here."
"No, Steve, the best day--the only day. I would have given ten thousand
pounds, I tell you, rather than have missed it, or have arrived
to-morrow instead."
"I am glad you are so rich, man," returned Steve drily, "for it is the
impression down here that you lost all your money upon that French horse
at the Derby; poor Master Walter, too, you led him into a pretty mess,
it seems."
"Curse Master Walter!" ejaculated Derrick angrily. "He's a mean skunk,
if ever there was one."
"People don't think so hereabouts, Mr Derrick; and I should recommend
you not to express your opinion quite so loudly. If any of these
volunteers heard you speaking of their captain in that way, you would
not escape with a whole skin."
"That's my look-out," answered Derrick roughly. "I want you to tell
me where I can find Sir Richard. I have particular business with him;
something for his private ear.
"It isn't about my Lady, is it?" inquired the other eagerly.
"Yes, it is. How came you to think of that? Eh?"
"How could I be off on it, man? Is she not the uppermost thought of
everybody here? Do you really bring any news of her? And, look you, if
it's bad news, don't tell it. I don't like that ugly look of yours, Mr
Derrick. If you have done any harm to my Lady, I, for one, will help to
wring your neck round."
"Do you mean to say she is not here?" gasped Ralph, without heeding his
last words.
"Of course not; didn't you know that? She's gone away, all of a sudden.
Sir Richard quite broke down when he alluded to it in his speech. He
said that urgent business had compelled her to be in London; but Roberts
told me that the family themselves have no idea why she took herself
off"----
"Ah, but they do though," exclaimed Derrick scornfully. "And I know,
too, or I'm much mistaken. She's trying that dodge on, is she? Not at
home, eh? And she supposes that I shall leave my card, and go away like
any other well-conducted visitor. She'll find me an acquaintance whom
it is not so easy to drop, I fancy. So my Lady has fled, has she?"
continued he. "Hadn't the pluck to blazon it out, eh? She won't,
however, have flown very far from her young chicks, I reckon. And,
perhaps, it's just as well that I should cut the comb of this young
bantam, Sir Richard, while his mother's out of the way; not that I feel
an ounce of pity for her, either."
"You'll feel a horsewhip about your shoulders, Ralph Derrick, before
you're a quarter of an hour older, or else I'm much mistaken," observed
Steve ruefully. "I'll have nothing more to say to you, and that's a
fact. You are not only drunk, but stark mad. I never heard a fellow go
on with such a farrago of rubbish. Look here, if you'll come home with
me at once, you shall have as much brandy as you can drink; but you
shan't kick up a row here. See, one of the ball-room windows is wide
open, and Sir Richard himself, for all you know, may---- Confound the
fellow, it will be only kindness to tell Styles, the policeman, to take
him up."
Derrick had burst away from Steve, and was running across the lawn to
the very place where the Lisgard family had discussed their mother's
departure upon the preceding evening.
CHAPTER X. OUT OF THE CAGE.
|THE immense ball-room was now a blaze of light, and full, though by no
means crowded, with brilliant company. One of the windows, as Steve had
said, had been thrown up, and through it the scene was as distinctly
displayed to Ralph as though he were within.
He stood there alone, for a feeling of respect kept others from the
immediate neighbourhood.
He beheld fair Letty, hostess and belle in one, moving from group to
group, who broke out into smiles at her approach; he beheld dark Rose
whirl by "in gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls"--the self-same
"parure" which had enslaved poor Anne Rees--and followed by many an
admiring eye. He beheld Master Walter's smiling face bent down to
whisper to some blushing girl, who forgot, perhaps, for the moment that
the handsome captain was already married--that he had been entrapped
by that scheming young person with the extremely self-confident
manner. Lastly, he beheld the man he sought talking with a gentleman of
apoplectic habit, and the air of a prosperous licensed victualler,
but who was no less a personage than the Earl of Marrobone, and
Lord-lieutenant of Wheatshire. His Lordship had sought the open window
for fresh air, and the two were conversing upon county matters, in which
Sir Richard, young as he was, already took the keenest interest.
"You will take your seat on the bench at once, Sir Richard, I hope,"
were the first words which Derrick caught. "Your commission is, of
course, already made out, and you will probably receive it to-morrow."
"I thank you, my Lord. Yes, I shall make a point of being a regular
attendant at the petty sessions."
"And you will be wanted, too, at Dalwynch; for between ourselves, the
old general yonder is a little past his work in that way. I don't
wish to prejudice you, I am sure, against a man in such a respectable
position; but the fact is, he and I are not such good friends as we
might be. He wants me to make Mr Chesham--you know, of course, who
that is, the relation in which they stand to one another, and so on--a
magistrate for the county. Now, I do think that that is a distinction
which should never be conferred upon any natural son--that is, unless
the family of the father should be really of mark, which is not the case
with our friend the general, whatever may be said of Lady Theresa. I
don't think, because a man has married into the peerage, that he should
therefore be himself admitted to all the privileges of good birth."
"With all deference, my Lord," returned Sir Richard stiffly, "I consider
that under no circumstances whatever, no matter whether the father be
peer or commoner, should the commission of the peace be conferred upon a
bastard."
"Then Richard Lisgard must never sit upon the bench at Dalwynch!"
exclaimed a malignant voice close beside the speaker.
In an instant, Sir Richard was upon the lawn without, face to face with
his insulter. No one in the ball-room, save the two gentlemen who
had been conversing together, had overheard the exclamation, and his
Lordship had not caught it distinctly. The band was playing on,
as accurately as before, and the dancers were dancing in tune; the
cavaliers were whispering their soft nothings, and the ladies making
their sweet replies, while the two men without--the one so scrupulously
apparelled in the latest fashion, the other dishevelled, travel-stained,
and in all respects what we call "a Rough," but both as brave as
lions--were grappling one another by their throats. Sir Richard, who
never forgot any man's face--a faculty not uncommon with persons of
his class and character--had recognised Ralph Derrick, the turbulent
interloper in his parish, the evil counsellor of his brother, at the
first glance; and enraged at his audacious trespass at such a time,
quite as much as by his late brutal insult to himself, which he set down
as the result of drink, he threw himself upon the gold-digger with the
utmost fury. The Earl of Marrobone stepped outside also, and closed
behind him the ball-room window; the stout old nobleman was one of the
coolest hands in England, and never lost his presence of mind. Even thus
debarred from making that public exposure of the young baronet which
Derrick had promised himself, he might have said something which his
Lordship would not have forgotten--for he was one of those who had
seen too much of the world to believe anything untrue merely because
it seemed impossible--but that, at the first touch of Sir Richard's
fingers, Ralph's fury deprived him of all utterance except a few
desperate imprecations. He would have liked, with folded arms, to
have impeached the young baronet as a base-born impostor (for he felt
convinced that the reason for my Lady's flight was known to him and the
rest of the family), and have stated his own wrongs in a few earnest and
pregnant words before the whole company in yonder room; but now that he
had his enemy so close, "the blind wild beast of force within him, whose
home is in the sinews of a man," was driven to strike and strike
again. So the precious half-minute that elapsed before help came to Sir
Richard, was wasted, and Derrick found himself helpless, and with his
wrongs untold, in the clutch of half-a-dozen men, and one of them the
village policeman, whom Steve had found at last, and despatched for that
very purpose.
"Take him and lock him up," exclaimed Lord Marrobone, perceiving that
Sir Richard was too excited to speak. "A night in the watch-house will
sober the drunken brute, and cool his courage. Take him away, I say,"
for Ralph began to weave afresh his choicest flowers of speech--mere
onion-ropes of the wickedest words--"and put the foulmouthed scoundrel
into quod!" So they bore Ralph forth, not without very rough treatment,
through the gates, and cast him into a small but well-secured tenement,
known as "the Cage," but so seldom used in the orderly little village,
that it was in the occupation of a certain white rabbit and her family
(pets of the constable's children), who had to be ejected, to make room
for this very different tenant.
Sir Richard Lisgard went up stairs to refit, and returned to
the ball-room, where none had even remarked his absence, with an
unimpeachable white cravat concealing an ugly bruise upon his windpipe;
but all smiles had departed from his noble features, and it was observed
by Mrs Walter Lisgard, in confidential conversation with the Honourable
Poppin Jay, that her dear brother-in-law looked more like Don Quixote
de la Mancha even than usual. He had made up his mind that, under
the circumstances, it was impossible he could be upon the bench of
magistrates while Derrick's case was being entered into, and was
disturbed by the apprehension that the old general would not look upon
the matter in a sufficiently important light, or punish the offender
with all the rigour of the law.
By no means quietly, however, had the affair passed off without doors.
There was nothing, according to rumour, which drunken Derrick had not
done in the way of misbehaviour towards the young baronet, from bad
words to the use of a bowie-knife, and nothing which he did not deserve.
The news flew from mouth to mouth like wildfire; the tenantry, the
peasantry, and the household were all in possession of the facts--and
of very much more than the facts, within half an hour of their real or
supposed occurrence. Last of all to hear it was Mistress Forest, for
whom a wholesome respect was entertained by all the domestics, and to
whom, being notoriously the object of Derrick's affections, it was of
course a delicate matter to communicate such intelligence. Little Anne
Rees, however, stole up stairs to Mary's own room, where she knew my
Lady's waiting-maid was sitting, far from all the noise and gaiety, and
thinking sadly of her poor dear mistress and her troubles. "O ma'am,
please ma'am, such a dreadful thing have happened!" said she. "Mr
Derrick have come back again.--Don't ye faint; don't ye take on so"
(for Mistress Forest had turned as white as Anne's own apron); "he's not
dead. But he's gone and pitched into Sir Richard before all the company,
and they fought together dreadful, I don't know how long."
"What did he say, girl?" exclaimed Mistress Forest eagerly; "I mean,
what did they fight about?"
"Well, he did not say much, didn't Mr Derrick, beyond cussing most
uncommon strong. It took six on 'em to carry him away, for all the world
like a corpse, except for his kicking and swearing; and when they said
he would be up before the bench on Thursday, he said 'He wished it was
to-morrow, that was all;' and at the same time he laughed that wicked,
that it went quite cold to the small of my back."
"And where have they put the poor man, after all?"
"In the Cage, ma'am. The key was not to be found, but they've barred him
up just like a wild beast. And oh, Mistress Forest, it isn't my place,
and I ask your pardon, but don't you give him no more encouragement, for
he is a wild beast, and nothing less, if you could only see him."
"That will do, Anne; though I'm obliged to you for coming to tell me.
I must speak to Sir Richard to-morrow, and try and beg him off.
Good-night."
"And aren't you coming down to supper, nor to see the fireworks, nor
nothing?" inquired the little maid in amazement.
"No, Anne; I was not in a humour for such things before, and certainly I
am not so now. I am going to bed."
But no sooner had the grateful little girl--who, though she waited no
longer on Mrs Walter (who had brought her own maid with her), yet always
remembered that she owed her enfranchisement to Mistress Forest--gone
down stairs, than Mary took up her bonnet and cloak, and hurried softly
after her. It was impossible not to meet persons at every turn; but it
was not difficult, in the general hubbub and excitement, to avoid their
observation; and this she did. The night was very dark; and once away
from the gleam and glitter of the house and lawn, Mary had to slacken
her pace even down the avenue she knew so well. When she was half-way
down it, as nearly as she could guess, she heard a noisy throng of men
approaching from the other direction, and shrank on one side, behind a
tree. Some of them carried lanterns, and as they went by, she recognised
Styles, the rural policeman, and also Mr Steve.
"I am as sorry as can be," the latter was saying, "and would much rather
see the poor fellow well away."
"Take care you go no further than wishing, however," responded the
guardian of the law. "It would be a bad night's work for any man who
should let that fellow out, mind you: ordered into custody by the
Lord-lieutenant hisself, and charged with assault and battery of a
baroknight--I never set eyes on such an owdacious scamp."
"He's simply mad, that's all," returned Steve, sadly--"mad with drink.
For whoever heard one in his senses, or even drunk in a natural way, talk
such infernal rubbish! Didn't he say he was 'my Lady's' husband!" The
answer was drowned in a great shout of laughter, and so the men passed
on. Mary waited until she was sure there were no more to come, then
walked on with her arms outstretched before her, as fast as she dared
go. Suddenly there was a sharp and rusty shriek behind her, and a glare
of lurid light which shewed her the gateway right in front.
"They have begun to fire the rockets," muttered she; "so there will be
nobody in the village, that is certain." The little street, much lighter
than the way by which she had hitherto come, was indeed quite empty, but
by no means noiseless; a sound of confused shouting came dully up from
the bottom of the hill, where, as she well knew, the Cage was situated;
and truly, as Anne Rees had said, it struck upon the ear like the
roaring of some angry beast making night hideous. Mary stopped for a
moment to listen; and when she went on, her face was paler, though not
less determined-looking than before.
"Sir Richard is a bastard--a bastard--a bastard! My Lady is not nearly
so good as she should be; and I'm her husband in the lock-up! Down with
the Lisgards--down with them; and down they shall come!"
These were the words, but interspersed with the most hideous
imprecations, with which Mistress Forest's ears were greeted as she
approached the little round house. Taking advantage of a momentary pause
in the stream of denunciation, she knocked with her clenched hand at the
nail-studded door.
"Sir Richard is a bastard! no more Sir Richard than you are!" shrieked
the voice within. "Be sure you go to the magistrates' meeting at
Dalwynch on Thursday, and let all Mirk go with you; then shall you see
pride have a fall, and the Lisgards come down with a run! Down with
them--down with them--and down they shall come!"
"Ralph--Ralph Derrick, it is me."
"Who's me? a woman?" inquired the prisoner eagerly. "Then I'll tell you
about my Lady, because you'll enjoy it. She's not my Lady; she's no
more my Lady than you are."
"Ralph Gavestone, I know that," answered Mistress Forest, with her mouth
glued to a crack in the door.
"Oh, you know that, do you? Then you must be the devil, whom I have
lately suspected to be of the female gender, and am now convinced of it.
You are of course aware, then, that I am her husband?"
"Yes, I am.--Will you be quiet, and go away to Dalwynch, and not try to
enter the Abbey grounds again this night, if I let you out?"
"Certainly. To-day is Tuesday, or it was so before midnight. I shall
therefore have to wait for my revenge till Thursday, if I am not set
free; whereas, if you let me out, I can go to work at once; I can see
an attorney to-morrow morning. That should please you rarely, if you are
indeed the devil. There's another bolt still over the hole through which
I kicked Steve's leg. I left my mark on some of them, mind you--R. G."
Mary Forest had opened the Cage; and behold there stood her whilom
lover, bleeding and ragged, his red beard plucked a thousand ways, his
features haggard, his eyes flaming with rage and hate.
"Oh, it's you, is it?" said he, with something of softness in his
turbid but vehement speech. "I might have known that, if I had thought
a little. But it's no good, my partridge--plump still, though a little
gray. I'm meat for your mistress now; I am the master of Mirk; or at
least I shall be in a day or two. I'm her Ladyship's husband--better
luck than she deserves, you'll think; and I can't be two women's husband
at the same time, any more than my Lady could have two mates. That
was her little mistake, for which she's about to reap the fruits. Sir
Richard is a bastard--a bastard--a bastard!"
"You said that if I unbarred this door, you would start for Dalwynch,"
observed Mistress Forest firmly. "You used to be a man whose word could
be relied on. Why do you not go?"
"I am going at once, my plump one. You have revenged yourself and me
at the same time. There is no kindness in this, I well understand, you
know; there is no such thing as kindness in the world."
"You are wrong there, Ralph Gavestone. It is because I love my mistress,
rather than pity you--although I do pity you still--that I have come
hither to save you from a night's lodging in such a place. It would have
grieved my mistress to the heart to think you were so served, I know."
"To the what?" returned Ralph with a savage laugh. "To her heart,
did you say? Why, the thing doesn't exist, wench! If, however, there
does still cling to her anything of the sort, when I tell them that Sir
Richard's a bastard, that'll wring it."
"Blessed are the Merciful, for they shall receive mercy," cried Mistress
Forest, terrified at the deadly menace of his tone, and uttering her
words as though they were a charm against an evil spirit.
"Blessed are the merciful!" echoed Ralph bitterly. "That may be so, for
I have never known them; but cursed are the treacherous and the false!
You have heard of the avenging angel--well, though my wings are so
tattered and torn just now, that's me. Do you see the mimic lightning
yonder over the Abbey? It will be stricken to-morrow from turret to
basement by a forked shaft. Down with the Lisgards, and down they shall
come!"
Shrieking this to a sort of frenzied measure, he suddenly broke away,
and took the Dalwynch road, up Mirkland Hill. Mary listened with some
feeling of relief to his fading strains, then sighed, and wiped from her
eyes a few honest tears.
"He was not always a bad man, I am sure," soliloquised she pitifully,
"and now God forgive him--he knows not what he's doing! He is mad."
CHAPTER XI. THE RECONCILIATION.
|THE day after a great festivity in a great house is generally a dull
one. It begins late; for both servants and guests are wearied, and
there is nothing about it which is not inferior to other days except
the luncheon, which in the way of "sweets," at all events, is always
exceptionally good. Sir Richard, however, who went through life as
nearly as could be to an automaton, was up at his usual time; and
descending to the empty breakfast-room, beheld, seated in an arm-chair
which he had wheeled to the window, a little wizzened old man, in
brightest Hessian boots, drab breeches, and a cut-away coat with
flap-pockets of the fashion of half a century ago.
"Dr Haldane!" exclaimed the young man in extreme amazement. "God bless
my soul and body!"
"I hope he will, sir," rejoined the visitor drily, extending three
fingers somewhat stiffly.
"No, sir; surely your whole hand!" cried the baronet warmly. "Your face
is the pleasantest sight--save that of my dear mother's--that I could
hope to set eyes on in Mirk Abbey; and I am not going to be fobbed off
with such a salutation as that."
"You get nothing more from me, Richard, unless the business I have come
about--very much against the grain, I can tell you--gets satisfactorily
accomplished."
"Does it relate to my dear mother, sir?"
"Of course it does, young man. What else, do you think, would have had
power to break my resolution--to bring me hither--to this room, in which
I have not set foot these twenty years, and where I last sat, side by
side--with---- But what is that to you? I suppose a man is not very
likely to be moved by the memories of a dead father, who pays no respect
to the feelings of his living mother."
"I am not aware, Dr Haldane," began Sir Richard with some
haughtiness----
"I know that, sir," broke in the other impetuously. "You are so
wrapped up in selfishness--you and that scampish brother of yours--that
neither of you have any thought except for your own miserable quarrels.
You were not aware, I dare say, that their constant repetition is
driving your mother into her grave, as they have already driven her from
her once happy home; and it is because you don't know it--because you
won't see it--that I am come hither, once for all, to inform you of the
fact. But perhaps such a little matter has no interest in your eyes: in
which case, I assure you, since it is entirely for her sake, and not at
all for yours, that I have come, I shall be exceedingly glad to go away
again."
"Have you any message to deliver, Dr Haldane," asked the baronet with an
angry flush, "direct from my mother, or are you merely stating your own
doubtless valuable, but quite unasked-for opinions?"
"I have a message from her to deliver to you, and to the rest of you,
young man; and if you think it worth while to send for your brother and
sister, you had better do so."
The young man rang the bell, and gave the necessary orders. Dr Haldane
took up a book of family prayers that lay beside him, and grunted
cynically as he read Sir Richard's name on the title-page. "What a work
for a fellow like this to write his name in, who drives his mother out
of her own house!" muttered he, and then affected to be immersed in the
contents. The baronet did not reply, but occupied himself in opening his
letters, one of which was from Madame de Castellan. That lady expressed
herself as "desolated" at the news of her old friend's departure from
the Abbey, the cause of which she was dying to hear. "If, however," ran
the postscript, "the absence of my Lady was for any reason likely to
continue, might not Mary Forest be despatched, at all events in
the meantime, to Belcomb, where Madame was absolutely without any
waiting-maid at all--with the exception of old Rachel--until another
could be procured from France, to supply the place of wicked Annette,
departed almost without a word of warning."
"Cunning old wretch!" murmured Sir Richard, crumpling up the pale thin
paper with its scratchy foreign caligraphy, and throwing it into the
grate. "She thinks of nothing but herself."
"How odd!" exclaimed the little doctor bitterly. "The lady's case must
be quite unique."
Not a word more was spoken by either until Letty entered, a little pale,
but looking exquisitely lovely.
"Dear Dr Haldane, who would have thought of seeing you here? How
pleased I am!"
The doctor rose with alacrity from his seat, and kissed her
affectionately upon the forehead.
"I am sure," said she with earnest gravity, "that you have brought us
news of dearest mamma."
"So you have thought of her, have you, little one?" answered he
fondly. (Letty was about three inches taller than the doctor.) "I
fancied she would have been no longer missed. Everybody was so happy
here yesterday, I am told; and everything went on so well without her."
"It did not, indeed," returned Letty indignantly. "Nothing seemed to go
right in her absence, notwithstanding all I could do; and as for being
happy, I can answer for myself and my brothers, that not five minutes
elapsed all day without our thinking of her, and grieving for her loss.
And oh, dear Dr Haldane, do you know why she has left us in this sad
manner, and when we shall see her back again?"
"I have her own explanation of why she has left Mirk Abbey," replied the
doctor; "but as for her return, that will depend upon yourselves--I mean
upon Sir Richard and Captain Lisgard. For you, Letty, she bids me
say have been at all times what a loving child should be to a
parent.--Master Walter, your servant, sir.--No; I will not shake hands
with a man who ruins his mother by gambling debts, and breaks her heart
with hatred of his own brother."
"That is not true, at least I do hope, Walter?" said Sir Richard
quickly.
"No; false, upon my honour," returned the captain. "My mother never told
you to say that, sir."
"Not quite that--no, she did not," admitted the little old man,
whose eyes had begun to lose their hard and inexorable expression,
notwithstanding his harsh words, from the moment that Walter entered the
room. It was so difficult even for a social philosopher to be severe and
stern with that young man. "Yet I am bound to say, Walter, that it is
you who have been most to blame with respect to that good mother,
who only lives but for her children, and whose very love for them has
compelled her to withdraw herself from beneath this roof. I will not now
dwell upon your clandestine marriage; I leave yourself to imagine how
the want of trust in your best friend as well as parent evinced in that
hasty step must have wounded her loving heart. Nor do I wish--that is
to say, your mother herself requests me not to bear hardly upon you
with respect to your gambling debts. You know the full extent of them
perhaps--yes, I was afraid of that--better than she does even yet;
but she has paid enough of them already to seriously embarrass her own
affairs."
"I have made a solemn promise never to bet or gamble more, Dr Haldane,"
said the captain hoarsely.
"I am glad of it, Walter; but what I was about to say was, that in this
case, as well as in that of your marriage, it was not so much the error
itself, as the want of frankness evidenced by your concealment of the
matter. To be ashamed of having done wrong, is a proper feeling enough;
but if it be not accompanied by the acknowledgment of the offence, it
only shews one to be a coward, not a penitent. However, bad as your
conduct has been in these two particulars, your mother would doubtless
have done her best to forget, as she hastened in both instances to
forgive it. But what she could not forget, since it happened every day
and every hour, were the quarrels between yourself and your brother."
Here the doctor turned sharply round on the young baronet, who had been
hitherto listening, not, perhaps, without complacency, to the catalogue
of his brother's misdeeds.--"I think, from what I have seen myself,
Richard, that it is you who are most in fault here. It is no use your
looking proud and cold on me. I never cared three brass farthings for
such airs, though they now and then misbecame even your poor father,
who was worth a dozen of you. But this ridiculous assumption of
superiority--founded upon mere accident of birth--naturally offends a
high-spirited young man like Walter, who, if he was in your place, would
certainly not make himself odious in that way, however he might fail
in other matters belonging to your position, which suffers nothing,
I readily allow, in your able hands. That you have the administrative
faculty in a high degree, sir, I concede; but this is not Russia, and if
it were, you are not the Czar."
"No man in Mirk ever called me a tyrant, Dr Haldane."
"Perhaps no man ever dared, sir; but I dare to say that a son whose
conduct is such that his mother can no longer bear to witness it, is
something worse than a tyrant. And be sure that if you continue so to
behave, you will never see her face under this roof again."
"My God, but this is very horrible!" cried Sir Richard, striking his
forehead. "I had no idea--I never dreamed that matters were coming to
any such pass as this.--Walter--brother, did it seem to you that we were
so very like to Cain and Abel?"
The two young men embraced, perhaps for the first time in their lives.
"Oh, when you tell her what you have seen, sir, do you think my mother
will come back?" cried Richard, with the tears in his fine eyes.
"I cannot say that; I am sure, however, that she will be greatly
comforted. May I tell her that this is not a mere impulse of the moment,
but that you are resolved from this time forth to be brothers indeed?"
"I will do my very best, Walter."
"And I mine, Richard," answered the other. "Don't reproach yourself like
that"--for the vast frame of his elder brother shook with sobs--"it is
much more my fault than yours: and you have been very good to me
about my debts; kinder than most fellows in your position would have
been--yes, you have, Dick; yes, you have. How very, very long it is
since I have called you Dick; not since we were at school together! You
used to call me Watty, then, you know."
"Yes, Watty; yes. I had almost forgotten it. Let us go to our mother
at once, lad--as we used to do when we made up our quarrels in the old
times--and ask her to come back again, and take her place here, where we
all miss her so much.--Where is she, Dr Haldane?"
"I don't know--that is, I may not tell, my boy," returned the old
gentleman hesitatingly, who, with Letty's hand fast clasped in his, was
staring out of window as hard as he could, but his eyes were very dim.
"Have you nothing more to tell us, sir?" asked Sir Richard humbly.
"Well, no, boys. The letter"----
"The letter!" ejaculated Letty; "I remember now that dear mamma told me
herself that when this very thing should come to pass--although I little
knew at the time to what she was alluding--we should find a letter in
her desk."
"It is not there now: she put it into my hands, and I--I tore it up,"
observed the doctor. "I have told you faithfully all that it contained,
with one exception. I do not choose to speak of that, dear Letty, and I
have your mother's permission not to do so."
"Let me speak of it, then," said Sir Richard, stealing his arm round his
sister's waist, and kissing her very tenderly. "The message the doctor
will not give respects yourself, dear, and his son Arthur. My foolish
pride"----
"Pride, indeed!" broke in the little old man impetuously; "your
confounded impertinence, I call it."
"Very well, doctor," continued the baronet smiling; "let it be so, if
you will. I had the audacity to suppose, Letty, that Mr Arthur Haldane
was not good enough for you."
"Nor is he," contested the little doctor with irritation. "Nobody's good
enough for Letty Lisgard. But he is as good as can be found in England,
that I will say, though the young man is my own son. And if he does not
make you a pattern husband, I'll cut him off with a shilling."
"I shall be glad to give you away to such an honest fellow, Letty," said
the baronet warmly; "so let that matter be considered settled."
It was very pleasant to see the blushing girl hiding her tearful face in
the old man's arms. "O mamma, mamma," murmured she, "how happy I should
be if you were but with us!"
"Well, well, that will be soon, I hope, my dear," said the doctor,
patting her silken head. "I will do all I can on my part to persuade
her: I am sure I shall make her happy with this news."
"Yes; but in the meantime," said Letty, "how terrible it must be for
her to be all alone. If you know where she is, can you not at least send
Forest to be with her?"
"No, no; but, by the by, I have forgotten to do your mother's bidding
with respect to that very person. She expressly desired that until
her own return to Mirk, Mary may be sent to Belcomb, where Madame de
Castellan is just now in saddest need of her."
"Ay, she writes to me that she has lost her French maid," said Sir
Richard, picking up the crumpled note: "in that case, Mary had better go
off at once."
"There is worse trouble at Belcomb than that," remarked the doctor
gravely. "That poor fellow Derrick, who, I hear, made so much
disturbance at the fte yesterday, has met with a sad accident."
"Why, the man was put in the Cage quite safe," said Sir Richard.
"Yes; but unfortunately for himself, he was let out again, and starting
in the dark over Mirkland Hill, whole drunk, and half mad, the poor
wretch wandered into the mill-yard."
"Through that gap in the wall!" exclaimed the baronet with excitement.
"Didn't I say the very last time we went by, that some accident would
happen there, through that man Hathaway's neglect?"
"Well, it has happened now, with a vengeance," pursued the doctor drily.
"I was sent for this morning at two o'clock, to Belcomb, where this poor
fellow had been carried, because it was a better place for him to lie in
than the mill. Hathaway had been working overtime, it seems; the sails
were going till near midnight, and the story is that this poor fellow
strayed beneath them, and was absolutely taken up and carried round;
but, at all events, he lies there, very ill--dying, I think--with
concussion of the brain, and Heaven knows what beside. I dare not-move
him even to examine his ribs."
"Good God! what can we do for him?" exclaimed Sir Richard. "Is there
nothing we can send?"
"He has everything he requires, or that he ever will have need of, poor
fellow, in this world. But old Rachel is not a good hand at nursing,
while Madame de Castellan, although good-natured enough--for a
Frenchwoman--is quite incapable of such a task; so you couldn't do
better than send Mary, as Madame has requested, though little knowing
how much she would have need of her: her assistance will be invaluable,
and indeed some sort of help must be had at once. I am going over there
myself immediately, and will take her in my gig, if you can spare her,
Miss Letty, and will tell her to get ready."
"By all means," cried Letty, hastily leaving the room upon that errand.
"Of course, all notion of prosecuting this poor fellow is now put out of
the question, whatever happens," observed the doctor.
"Quite so--quite so," answered the baronet eagerly. "Poor drunken
wretch; I am sure I'm very sorry. And I tell you what, Dr Haldane, if
this man dies, there should be some sort of deodand laid upon that Mill.
Hathaway ought to be punished for wilful neglect."
"That won't bring the poor man to life again, though," observed the
doctor.
"No, of course not; though, if one may be allowed to say so, he really
led such a sad life, by all accounts, it seems almost as well that he
should end it. It would be a happy release, I mean, if he was to die,
poor fellow; don't you think so?"
"Yes, I do. It would be better for himself, and better for others,"
returned the doctor very gravely.
"Just so," said Sir Richard; "better for all concerned. Poor man!"
CHAPTER XII. RALPH'S APPEAL.
|HOWEVER Dr Haldane, at my Lady's own request, may have misrepresented
to the young folks at the Abbey the motives which had caused her flight,
he told them truth as respected Derrick. That unfortunate man had indeed
met with the frightful mischance described. When he left Mary Forest on
the previous night, his mind confused with vague revengeful passion, and
his brain muddled with blows, as well as with the spirits he had of late
taken in such quantities, and the effects of which were beginning to
tell upon his exhausted frame, he had staggered up Mirkland Hill almost
like one in a dream. The night was pitchy dark, and although ever
and anon a burst of light came forth from the fireworks in the Abbey
grounds, they were of course perfectly useless for his guidance. The top
of the hill being quite bare of trees, was less obscure than the way he
had already come, and in any other circumstances he could scarce have
come to harm; but as it was, stumbling blindly on with his head low, he
entered the mill-yard through that fatal gap in the wall, without even
knowing he had left the highroad. The very roaring of the sails, which
revolved dangerously near the ground, might have warned him, but that
his ears were already occupied with the seething and tumult of his own
brain; and when the terrible thing struck him, before which he went down
upon the instant as the ox falls before the poleaxe, he never so much as
knew from what he had received his hurt. There he lay for more than an
hour, underneath the whirling sails, which one after another came round
to peer over his haggard face, gashed with that frightful wound. The lad
in charge knew nothing of what had happened, being engaged in the top
story watching the fireworks in the park beneath; but about midnight he
stopped the mill, and descending with his lantern, its rays by chance
fell upon Ralph's prostrate body. Some persons returning from the
festivities at the Abbey happened to be going by at that very time, and
with their assistance he was carried across the road to the lodge at
Belcomb (there being no sort of accommodation for one in his condition
at the mill), and from thence to Madame de Castellan's little cottage.
That lady was for the time, as she had stated in her letter to Sir
Richard, the sole inhabitant of Belcomb; but with the injured man, old
Rachel and her husband the gatekeeper of course arrived, and the former
did what she could as sick-nurse until the arrival of Dr Haldane, for
whom a messenger was at once despatched. The old Frenchwoman, who was
aroused with difficulty, and characteristically kept them waiting at
the door while she made herself fit for the reception of company, was so
shocked and terrified by what had happened, that she was at first of no
use at all. She had expressed herself in broken English as being very
glad to be of any service to the poor sufferer while they were bearing
him within, and had even busied herself in procuring hot water and
bandages; but no sooner did she catch sight of his ghastly face, seamed
with that cruel gash, than all her resolution appeared to desert her,
and she swooned away. By the time the doctor arrived, however, she had
established herself in the sick-room, and although he had described
her as incapable of doing much in the way of tendance, she was at least
doing her best.
As for Ralph, he lay breathing stertorously, but quite motionless and
unconscious. His mighty chest rose and fell, but by no means equably;
his large brown hairy hands lay outstretched before him on the white
coverlet; his face washed clean indeed from the recent blood-stains, but
with the tangled beard still clotted with gore. It seemed strange that
that powerful English frame of his should lie there so helplessly,
while Madame, with her snow-white hair and delicate fragile hands, was
ministering to him with such patient care; she that must have been
his senior, one would have thought to look at them, by at least twenty
years. Perhaps it was the sense of this contrast which caused the
doctor to glance from the one to the other so earnestly, even before he
commenced his examination of the wounded man.
"Will he live?" asked Madame in English. "God knows," added she with
trembling accents, "that I have no other wish within my heart but to
hear you say 'Yes.'"
"Of course, Madame," returned the other with meaning, "I do not pay
you so ill a compliment as to suppose you to wish him dead, because he
inconveniences you by his presence here; but I cannot say 'Yes' or 'No,'
He is terribly hurt. The spine is injured; and there are ribs broken
which I cannot even look to now. But it is here"--he pointed to the
forehead--"where the worst danger lies: unhappily, the mischief has been
done when he was--in the worst possible state to bear such a blow in
such a place."
"Does he know, doctor"----
"He knows nothing, Madame; perhaps he may never know. You must not speak
so much, however; or, if so, pray use your native tongue. It is better,
if consciousness does return, that the brain should be kept quite quiet.
I think you had better retire to your room, Madame, and leave myself and
Rachel to manage."
"Yes, yes, we can do very well, lady," assented old Rachel. "This is not
a place for such as Madame, is it, sir? If we could only get Mistress
Forest, now; she is first-rate at nursing; she nursed me for three
whole nights last winter, when I was most uncommon had with the shivers,
caught a-coming from Dalwynch in the spring-cart--and the cover on it,
when it don't rain, is worse than nothing, for there's such a draught
drives right through it"----
"Yes, yes," interrupted the doctor impatiently; "you are quite right,
Rachel. We'll send for Mistress Forest the first thing in the morning:
she can easily be spared from the Abbey, now my Lady's away."
"Ah, the more's the pity!" returned old Rachel. "And this looks almost
like a judgment, don't it, sir, that this poor man, who was so rude to
my dear mistress--or wanted to be, as I have heard--should have been
carried in under her own roof here, feet foremost"----
"Be silent, woman!" broke in Madame de Castellan with severity. "We have
nothing to do with Lady Lisgard's affairs here. This house is my house
for the present; this wounded man is my guest."
"Speak French, speak French, Madame," exclaimed the doctor imploringly.
"Did you not hear me say so before? You had much better return to bed."
"No, no," returned Madame, in her native tongue; "I cannot do it. I will
be prudent, I will be careful for the future; but I cannot leave him,
until, at all events, Mary Forest comes. O send her--send her, and let
this woman go, whose presence is intolerable to me."
Accordingly, in his visit to Belcomb about noon next day, the doctor
brought Mistress Forest over with him, who was at once installed as
Ralph Derrick's sick-nurse; old Rachel being sent home to the lodge.
No change had as yet taken place in the sufferer; but the doctor's
practised eye perceived that one was impending. This time, he made a
long and earnest examination of his patient.
"Will he live?" asked Madame again, when he had finished, with the same,
earnestness, nay, even anguish as before.
"There is hope; yes, I think there is hope," returned the doctor
cautiously.
"Thank God for that; I thank Him for His great mercy!" ejaculated Madame
with clasped hands and upturned eyes.
"Who is that?" inquired a hoarse voice from the bed. The words were
indistinct, and uttered with difficulty, but on every ear within that
room they smote with the most keen significance. The two women turned
deadly pale; and even the doctor's finger shook as he placed it to his
lips, in sign that they should keep silent.
"Hush, my good friend," said he to the wounded man, whose eyes were now
open wide, and staring straight before him: "you must not talk just now;
speaking is very bad for you."
"Who is that who was thanking God because there was hope of my life?"
reiterated Ralph. "Neither man nor woman has any cause to do that, I'm
sure; while some have cause enough to pray that I were dead already,
or at least had lost my wits. Doctor--for I suppose you are a
doctor--have I lost my wits or not? Am I a sane man, or one not in my
right mind?"
"Hush, hush; you are sane enough of course, except to keep on talking
thus when I tell you that to speak is to do yourself the most serious
harm."
"You hear him--all you in the room here," continued the sick man in a
voice which, though low and feeble, had a sort of malignant triumph in
it, which grated on the ear. "This doctor says I am quite sane. He says
also that there is hope of my life--just a shadow of a hope. He is wrong
there, for I shall die. But, anyhow, I lie in peril of death, and yet in
my right mind. Therefore, what I say is to be credited--that, I believe,
is the law; and even the law is right sometimes. What I am about to say
is Truth--every word of it. I wish to make a statement.--No, I will take
no medicines; pen and ink, if I could only write, would be more welcome
than the Elixir of Life, but I cannot." Here a groan was wrung from
his parched and bloodless lips. "O Heaven! the pain I suffer; it is the
foretaste of the hell for which I am bound!"
"O sir," ejaculated Mistress Forest, moving to the bed foot, so as to
shew herself to his staring eyes, "think of heaven, not of hell. Ask for
pardon of God, and not of revenge upon man."
"Ah, it is you, is it, good wench? I thought that no one else could have
wished me well so piously a while ago. You did me an ill turn, although
you did not mean to do so, when you let me out of the Cage last night.
Was it last night, or a week, or a month ago?"
"It was only last night," interposed the doctor gravely. "Now, do not
ask any more questions, or I shall have to forbid them being answered.
It is my duty to tell you that with every word you speak your life is
ebbing away."
"Then there is the less time to lose," answered Derrick obstinately.
"As for answering me, I do not want that. All I ask of you is, that
you shall listen; and what I say, I charge you all, as a dying man,
to remember--to repeat--to proclaim." Here he paused from
weakness.--"Doctor," gasped he, "a glass of brandy--a large glass, for
I am used to it. I must have it.--Good. I feel stronger now. Do you
think, if you took down my words in writing, that I could manage"--here
a shudder seemed to shake his poor bruised and broken frame, as though
with the anticipation of torture--"to set down my name at the bottom of
it?"
"No, my poor fellow--no. You could no more grasp a pen at present than
you could rise and leave this house upon your feet. You must feel that
yourself."
"I do--I do," groaned Ralph. "It is all the more necessary, then, that
you should listen. My real name is not that one by which I have, been
known at Mirk. It is not Derrick, but Gavestone: the same name, good
wench, by which your mistress went before she was married to Sir Robert
Lisgard. But that was not her maiden name--no, no. Do you not wonder
while I tell you this? or did I speak of it last night, when I was mad
with drink and rage?"
"You said something of the sort, sir; but I knew it all before that. You
are my Lady's husband, and Sir Richard and the rest are all her bastard
children--that is, in the eye of the law."
"You knew it, did you?" returned Ralph after a pause. "You were in the
plot with her against me, then? I am glad of that. I should be sorry to
have left the world fooled to the last; for I thought that you at least
were an honest wench, although all the world else were liars. So, after
all, you knew it, did you? Well, at all events, it is news to the doctor
here."
"No, sir," returned the old gentleman, quietly applying some Eau de
Cologne and water to the patient's brow; "I must confess I knew it
also."
"And yet you told nobody!" ejaculated Ralph. "You suffered this
imposture to go on unexposed!"
"I only heard of the facts, you speak of--from Lady Lisgard's own
lips--two days ago at furthest," returned Dr Haldane; "and I certainly
told nobody, since the telling could do no good to any human being--not
even to yourself, for instance--and would bring utter ruin and disgrace
upon several worthy persons."
"Ha, ha!" chuckled the patient hoarsely; "you are right, there. Disgrace
upon that insolent Sir Richard, and on that ungrateful puppy, Master
Walter."
"True," continued the doctor gravely; "and upon Miss Letty, who is dear
to all who know her, but dearest to the poor and friendless."
"I am sorry for her," said Derrick; "but I am not sorry for my Lady--she
that could look me in the face, and hear me tell the story of our early
love, and of her own supposed death, to avert which I so gladly risked
my life, and all without a touch of pity."
"No, sir, with much pity," broke forth Mistress Forest. "I myself know
that her heart bled for you. She never loved Sir Robert as she did
you, ungrateful man! She loved you dead and alive; she loves you now,
although you pursue her with such cruel hate, and would bring shame upon
all her innocent children."
"Ay, why not?" answered Ralph. "Have they not had their day, and is
it not my turn at last? Who is the woman behind the curtains? Let her
stand forth, that I may see her; she, at least, is not a creature of 'my
Lady,' like you and the doctor here, and ready, for her sake, to hide
the truth and perpetuate my wrongs. Let that woman stand forth, I say."
CHAPTER XIII. DYING WORDS.
|THUS adjured, Madame de Castellan stepped forward to the same position
which Mary Forest had occupied at the foot of the bed: nowhere else
could Ralph see her, for he was on his back just as they had first laid
him, and could not turn his face a hairbreadth to left or right.
"Who are you?" asked he bluntly. "I do not remember having seen your
face at Mirk."
"They call me Madame de Castellan," replied the old lady in good
English, "and I live here at Belcomb by favour of Sir Richard Lisgard."
"Ah, you have reason, then, to be friends with him and his," returned
the sick man bitterly. "You will none of you see me righted. Curse you
all!"
"I will not see you wronged, if I can help it, sir," replied the
Frenchwoman solemnly, but keeping her eyes fixed always upon the floor.
"Will you not? Well, you have an honest face, I own; but faces are so
deceptive! Mistress Forest's face yonder, for instance, is pleasant
enough to look upon, but still she plays me false. Master Walter's
again--why, he seems to have robbed an angel of his smile, and yet he
is base-hearted like the rest; and, lastly, there was my Lucy--not mine
now--no, no; but what a sweet look was hers! And there was guile and
untruth for you! But that is what I have to tell you. You have said you
will not see me wronged, and I must believe you, since there is none
else to trust to here. Besides, you are too old to lie; you will be
called to your own account too soon to dare to palter with a dying man.
Yes, I am dying fast.--More brandy, doctor--brandy. Ah, that's life
itself!--And yet, although you are so old, Madame, I dare say you
remember your youthful days, when you were fair--for you were fair, I
see--and courted. You were not without your lover, I warrant?"
"I was loved, sir," returned Madame, in low but steadfast tones.
"And did you marry the man you loved?"
"I did, sir. My husband was very dear to me, God knows, though we did
not live long together."
"He died young, did he?"
"Alas, yes, and I was left alone in the world without a friend or a
home."
"His memory did not fade so quickly that you could love and marry
another man at once, I suppose?"
"His memory never faded," replied the old lady gravely, "for it has not
faded now; but after an interval of three years, I married another man."
"And loved him like the other?"
"No, sir; there is only one true love--at least for a woman. But I was
a dutiful wife for the second time; and there were children born to
me--three children--inexpressibly dear; and when I lost their father,
who loved me, though I could only give him grateful duty in return, I
had something to live for still."
Whether the grief-laden tone of Madame touched him, or the sad story
she was telling, Ralph's accents seemed to lose something of their
bitterness when he again broke silence.
"But if, lady, your first husband and true lover had, by some wondrous
chance, returned, as it might be, from the very grave, and you were
satisfied that it was he indeed, and knew him, although he knew you
not, and he was living a bad life among bad company, with no one in all
the world to call him friend, would you not then have held your arms
out to him, and cried: 'Come back, come back!' and told him how you had
loved him all along?"
"No, sir; not so. If I had been alone, like him, with only my own
feelings to consult, I might, indeed, have so behaved; for my heart
would have yearned towards him, as it does, Heaven knows, even now. But,
sir, in such a case there would not only have been Love to be obeyed,
but Duty. If this man were living the wild life you speak of, would he
not have made a bad father to my poor children (left in my sole
charge and guardianship by a just and noble man), an evil ruler of a
well-ordered house, a bad example to all whom I would have had respect
him? Nay, worse, would not my acknowledgment of him--which I should
otherwise be eager to make, and willing to take upon myself the shame
that might accrue to me therefrom--would not that, I say, have brought
disgrace on those who had earned it not--have made my own children,
lawfully begotten, as I had thought, all Bastards, and soiled the memory
of an honest man, their father?"
A long silence here ensued, broken only by the sick man's painful
breathing, and the sobs of Mistress Forest, who strove in vain to
restrain her tears.
"I thank you, Madame," said Ralph very feebly: "you have been pleading
without knowing it for one who---- Do you see these tears? I did not
think to ever weep again. Either your gentle voice--reminding me of the
very woman of whom I had meant to speak so harshly--or perhaps it is
the near approach of death which numbs these fingers, that would else
be clutching for their revenge--I know not; but I now wish no one
harm.--Doctor, you must feed this flame once more; let me but speak a
very few words, and then I shall have no more use for Life.--Mary, good
wench, come here. You will shortly see again that mistress whom you love
so well, and have so honestly served. Tell her--- Nay, don't cry; I
do not need your tears to assure me that you feel for poor Ralph
Gavestone--castaway though he be. I heard your 'Thank God' when the
doctor said (though he was wrong there) that there was hope for me.
Those were very honest words, Mary."
"I did not say them!" ejaculated the waiting-maid earnestly. "O Madame,
tell him who it was that said them."
"It was I," murmured Madame de Castellan, coming close to the bedside,
and kneeling down there.
"You, lady! Why should you pray so earnestly that I might live, whose
death would profit many, but whose recovery none?"
"Because I have wronged you, Ralph. Yes, Ralph! You know me now. Do
not ask to see my patched and painted face again, because it is not
mine, but listen to my voice, which you remember. I am your own wife,
Lucy, and I love you, husband mine."
"She loves me still," murmured the dying man: "she owns herself my wife,
thank God, thank God!" The tears rolled down his cheeks, and over his
rough and ghastly face a mellow softness stole, like the last gleam of
sunset upon a rocky hill. Dr Haldane rose and noiselessly left the room,
beckoning Mary to follow. The dying husband and his wife were left to
hold their last interview alone.
"What I have been telling you, Ralph, as the history of another, is my
own. I have never forgotten you. I have loved you all along. Forgive me,
if I seem to have sacrificed you to--to those it was my duty to shield
from shame. I could not hear to see disgrace fall upon my children, and
so I fled from them, in hopes to save them from it. And yet I loved
them so that I could not altogether leave them, but took this cottage in
another name, and under this disguise, in order to be near them. *
* The author having been informed by a critical friend that
he has exposed himself to the charge of plagiarism, by
representing Lady Lisgard as thus assuming the character of
another person, begs to state--first, that he has never had
the opportunity of reading the powerful novel, East Lynn
(wherein, as he understands, a similar device is employed);
and secondly, that the idea of the metamorphosis is taken
from a short story (written by himself) which was published
in Chambers's Journal, under the title of "Change for Gold,"
so long ago as 1854.
O lover, husband, who saved my life at peril of his own, a mother's
heart was my excuse--be generous and noble as of old--forgive me!"
"Forgive you!" gasped the sick man: "nay, forgive me! How could I ever
have sought to do you wrong! My own dear Lucy!" In an instant she had
plucked away so much of her disguise as was about her face and head, and
was leaning over him with loving eyes.
"How many years ago, wife, is it since you kissed me last?" murmured the
dying man. "My outward sight is growing very dim; I do not recognise
my Lucy's face, although I know 'tis she; but I see her quite clearly
sitting in the cottage-porch beside the shining river. How it roars
among the rounded stones, and how swiftly it is running to the sea!
Round my neck, love, you will presently find the little locket with that
dead sprig of fuchsia in it which you gave me when we plighted troth.
Let that he buried with me; I have had no love or care for sacred
things, but perhaps----They say that God is very merciful; and since He
sees into our inmost thoughts, He will know with what reverence I held
that simple gift, because it was your own, and you were His. I loved you
most, I swear, because you were so pure and good, Lucy. Ah me! I wonder,
in the world to come, if I or he"----
A piercing cry broke from my Lady's lips. "Spare me, Ralph--spare me!"
"Yes, yes. It was done for the best, I know. Don't fret, dear heart.
Of course you thought me Dead. For certain, I am dying now--fast, fast.
Thank God for that! It would have been a woeful thing, having thus found
my Own, to have left her straightway, and taken my lone way through the
world again, knowing the thing I know. But I would have done it, never
fear. Are you sure of those two, Lucy--that were here a while ago--quite
sure? My dying curse upon them, if they breathe to human ear our sacred
secret! They love you? That is well. I would have all the world to love
you; and may all those you love repay that priceless gift with tender
duty." Here he paused, as if to gather together his little remaining
strength; and when he spoke again, it was with a voice so low that my
Lady had to place her ear quite close to his pale lips to catch his
words. But she did hear them, every one. "The prayers of a man like me
may avail nothing, Lucy, but at least they can do no harm. God bless Sir
Richard--yes, yes! God bless Master Walter's handsome face! God bless
Miss Letty! That's what I said on Christmas-eve with Steve and the rest
of them, not knowing whom I spoke of, and I say it now, for are they not
my Lucy's dear ones! God bless you, my dear wife. Kiss--kiss."
Those were the last words of wild Ralph Gavestone. When the doctor and
Mistress Forest re-entered that silent room, my Lady was upon her knees
beside the pillow; she had closed the dead man's eyes, and folded his
palms together, and taken from his neck the locket, but to be returned
to him by a trusty hand when the time came.
CHAPTER XIV. AND LAST.
|If there had happened to be any one upon whom poor Ralph's wild talk,
on the night of the Abbey festivities, had made any serious impression
whatever, it was destined to be removed by the inquest that followed
upon his death. The very words he had made use of in his fury, his
calling my Lady his wife, and stigmatising Sir Richard as her natural
son, would have been held to be no slight evidence of his insanity,
which, however, was abundantly proved by other testimony. The waiter at
the Royal Marine at Coveton came in all good faith to take his solemn
oath that, to the best of his judgment, the gent, with the beard, who
had scandalised that respectable house by taking brandy for breakfast,
was like no other man alive as he had ever served; or, in other words,
was nothing short of a lunatic. The postboys whom he had commanded to
stop and let him out before his chaise could be whirled over the first
stage, pronounced him mad. The porter at the railway station, to whose
civil inquiry as to whither he was going the angry man had returned so
uncivil an answer, came to the same conclusion. No man nearer home, from
the lord-lieutenant to the parish constable, and (even of his whilom
companions) from Captain Walter Lisgard to landlord Steve, but gave it
as his opinion that the man was mad. And the verdict of the coroner's
jury being in accordance with the evidence, decided that the deceased
had met with his death in the manner with which we are acquainted during
an attack of temporary insanity, induced by Drink.
The nerves of Madame de Castellan had received much too great a shock,
from recent occurrences, to permit her presence at the inquest; and,
indeed, such an effect did they take upon her, that she left not only
Belcomb but England itself almost immediately, declining with many
thanks Sir Richard's offer--notwithstanding that Letty drove over in
person to make it known to her--that she should take up her residence
for the present at the Abbey itself. So Madame went back again to her
native land as suddenly and almost as mysteriously as she had come; and
after a while, wrote to inform her English friends that the domestic
disagreements which had driven her from home were in a fair way to be
healed, and that it was very unlikely that she should have to trespass
upon their kindness any more.
The real history of that lady's coming to Belcomb was never absolutely
known to more than two persons, and perhaps more or less rightly guessed
at by a third. From the moment that my Lady recognised her first husband
in Ralph Derrick, she never concealed from herself the possibility of
her having to leave the Abbey, and become perhaps a lifelong exile from
home and friends for her three children's sakes, but especially for that
of Sir Richard. Perhaps she exaggerated the depth to which family pride
had taken root in the heart of her eldest son; but she honestly believed
that the knowledge of his being illegitimate would have killed him.
Although she could never have possessed the strength of mind, even had
she enjoyed the requisite want of principle, to deny in person Ralph's
claim to her as her lawful husband, she justly argued that he would be
utterly unable to establish his case in her absence. He could summons no
witness whose testimony would go half so far as her own tell-tale face;
while his own character was such, that no credence would be given to
his statement, unless supported by strong and direct evidence. Thus
situated, my Lady turned over in her mind scheme after scheme of flight,
without hitting upon anything that gave much promise, and all of which
entailed a residence abroad, cruelly far from those dear ones from whom
she was about, with such a heavy heart, to flee for their own good; but
when she had, perforce, as we have seen, to take Mistress Forest into
her confidence, something arose out of a conversation between them
concerning their old life together at Dijon, which suggested that
ingenious artifice which she eventually put into effect.
Madame de Castellan had been dead some years, though of that
circumstance my Lady's children were unaware, albeit Sir Richard had
heard a good deal of her when a boy, and had even some dim recollection
of her personal appearance when she was a guest of his father and
mother's at the Abbey.
Of this remembrance, my Lady took advantage. Mary and herself in that
old school-time at Dijon had been used to act charades at Madame's
house, and that circumstance no doubt put into Lady Lisgard's mind the
idea of personating the old Frenchwoman herself. My Lady had
learned from those amateur performances the secrets of "green-room"
metamorphosis; * she was naturally endowed with no small power of
mimicry; and she could speak French like a native.
* How a few strips of black plaster on the teeth can
counterfeit age and toothlessness, let any of our fair
readers experiment for themselves.
Supposing that the desired transformation could be effected, what
securer plan, and one more unlikely to be suspected, could be found than
that secluded cottage of Belcomb, so close to the Abbey, and whither all
news relating to her children could be brought to her at once through
Mary, who, it was arranged, should be transferred to Madame's service in
the manner that was afterwards actually adopted. The letter purporting
to come from Dijon, and taken by Sir Richard's own hand from the
post-bag, had been placed therein by Mary Forest, who had used her
mistress's key at an earlier hour, and found that communication
from Arthur Haldane concerning Ralph's departure for Coveton, which
necessitated such immediate action on the part of my Lady. There was not
one day to be lost in making her preparations, and indeed from that
time she had been ready to start at a moment's notice, though, as it
happened, there was no need for such urgent haste. The counterfeit visit
in person to the Abbey was of course running a considerable risk,
but the establishment of the fact of Madame de Castellan's arrival
at Belcomb, my Lady had rightly judged to be of paramount importance;
indeed, that being effected, it is doubtful even if the unhappy Ralph
had not met with so sudden an end, whether any suspicion of Madame and
my Lady being one and the same person would have ever existed. The most
difficult matter connected with my Lady's flight was in truth, after
all, to find a reason for it sufficient to satisfy the minds of those
she left behind her. The children would have been slow to believe that
she could bring herself to leave home and them, simply because her two
boys did not get on well together, for in that case, absentee mothers
should be considerably more common than they are. But, fortunately,
not only did the flame of discord between Sir Richard and Master Walter
continue to burn, but received plenty of unexpected fuel, such as at any
other time would have caused my Lady unutterable woe, but which, under
present circumstances, were almost welcome to her. Walter's clandestine
marriage with the very girl to whom his brother had offered his own
hand, was an incident so painful as to give my Lady an excuse for almost
anything; but Walter had left the Abbey, and it was important that he
should return thither and make things unpleasant, as he could not fail
to do by the mere fact of his presence there with Rose. Sir Richard,
with his fte in view, was easily persuaded to ask the new-married
couple down, and all things worked together for ill, which for once was
my Lady's "good."
Then, again, Walter's debts--of the full extent of which, however,
his mother was never informed--gave her an additional cause of serious
dissatisfaction; and lastly, Sir Richard's opposition to Letty's
marriage with Arthur Haldane, made up a very respectable bill of
indictment. At all events, as we have seen, it was acknowledged so to be
by the parties against whom it had been filed. The consciences of both
Sir Richard and Walter were really pricked; and, besides, there was the
painful fact of their mother's departure from her own roof, owing to
their conduct, whether it justified such an extreme measure upon her
part or not. Moreover, the delegate to whom my Lady had committed the
disclosure of her motives, had been well chosen. It was necessary that a
third person should be admitted to the knowledge of my Lady's secret, in
order that her affairs might be transacted during an absence which might
be prolonged for years, or even for her lifetime; and where could she
find so tried and trustworthy a friend as Dr Haldane? The fact, too, of
his visiting the Abbey in person, after an interval of so many years,
and even after his so recent refusal to be present on the all-important
occasion of Sir Richard's coming of age, gave additional weight to
the mission upon which he came. It brought about, as has been shewn, a
genuine reconciliation between the brothers, and even exacted from them
a solemn promise that their disagreements should henceforth cease. Nor
was it destined that the good doctor's friendly offices should cease
with this. When the day came to lay Ralph Derrick's body in its coffin,
the old philosopher--nay, cynic, as many held him to be--placed very
reverently with his own hands that little locket around the dead man's
neck, which he had treasured as the most precious thing he owned for
more than half a lifetime. And on the morrow, when they buried him in
Dalwynch churchyard, the doctor followed him to the grave, not only as
the "deceased's medical attendant," but as his chief and only mourner,
with a tender pity for the world-battered and passionful man, who had
thus found rest at last. He stood beside the round black mould, when all
had departed, with that wise, sad smile upon his face, which he always
wore when he was thinking deepest; and though "Poor fellow, poor
fellow!" was all he said, it was a more pregnant epitaph than is often
to be read on tombstones.
After a little, the good news came to Mirk from France, that my Lady,
trusting to what she had heard from her old friend, was coming home
again. The only stipulation she made was, that her withdrawal from the
Abbey was not to be alluded to by any of her family, for which, indeed,
added she, there would be the less necessity, since the principal cause
of it--the ill-feeling between her sons--no longer, as she was delighted
to understand, existed. Of course, Lady Lisgard could not prevent
"the county" from canvassing the matter, any more than she could have
forbidden a general election; and, in truth, her affairs were almost as
much talked about as politics after a dissolution of parliament. She
and her sons had each their partisans, who argued for their respective
clients often with great enthusiasm, and sometimes with an ingenuity
worthy of better premises. But it was the general opinion that Master
Walter's marriage was at the bottom of the whole business, and that that
designing woman, Rose Aynton, had sown dissension in what had once been
one of the best-conducted and most united families in Wheatshire.
An account of the inquest in the local journals, a paragraph in the
Times, headed "Curious Catastrophe," and an allusion to Don Quixote's
adventure apropos of the homicidal wind-mill, in a comic print,
exhausted the subject of Ralph Derrick's death.
But my Lady returned to Mirk Abbey in deep mourning, it was understood
in consequence of the sudden death of Madame de Castellan, which
occurred, singularly enough, almost immediately after her leaving
Belcomb.
It was thought very unfortunate that the two old friends should thus
have never been permitted to meet. Madame's demise, however, of course
left Mary Forest free to rejoin her former mistress, in whose company,
indeed, she returned to Mirk.
We have said that besides the two persons in possession of my Lady's
secret, there was a third who had his shrewd suspicions. But if Arthur
Haldane's legal training had really enabled him to come to the right
conclusion in the matter, it also judiciously restrained him from saying
anything about it.
He had never cause to use that memorandum which we saw him set down in
his pocket-book of Miss Letty's opinion. "It seems to me that people
should be taken for what they are, let their birth be what it will;"
but we believe that it was not without a reason that he committed it to
paper. Although entirely without ancestral pride, and with a very hearty
contempt for any such folly, as matters stood, Letty was just the sort
of girl who, upon finding herself illegitimate, would have refused to
carry out her engagement, from the apprehension of attaching disgrace
to the man she loved; and therefore Arthur thought it well to record her
own argument against herself, in case any such occasion should arise.
Not many months elapsed, however, before this possible obstruction was
removed, in the pleasantest manner, by the union of these two young
people; and a happier or better assorted couple it is not my fortune to
know.
Sir Richard remains a bachelor, although as staid and decorous in his
conduct as any married man; even more so than some, it is whispered--but
then, who can seriously blame charming Master Walter? The cause of the
young baronet's celibacy is strenuously held by many to be Miss Rose
Aynton's rejection of him long ago, for that has oozed out, somehow or
other, divulged perhaps by the young woman herself in some moment when
her vanity for once overcame her prudence; but, at all events, Sir
Richard has acted very generously towards his brother's wife (that's how
these gossips put it), and her husband Captain Lisgard's debts have been
settled, and he has been entirely "set up" with respect to his pecuniary
affairs; and, moreover, he runs no risk of being again embarrassed.
If it is really true that he occasionally forgets that abrupt ceremony
which took place between himself and Rose at the Register Office (and
somehow the thing does not recur to the memory with such force under
those circumstances as when one is married in the usual way by the
combined endeavours of several clergymen), and indulges in little
flirtations, he has at least forsworn both the turf and the gaming-table.
We do not say that he is given up entirely to his military duties, but
he is in the enjoyment of an excellent staff appointment, and possesses
the fullest confidence both of his commanding officer and of that
functionary's wife; which latter, we all know, is essential to the
position of an aide-decamp. But the fact is, that almost everybody likes
Master Walter, and will continue to do so (although perhaps somewhat
less as he grows older) to his dying day. And why not?
Dieu l'a jug. Silence, sings a true poet upon the death of the first
Napoleon: Que des faibles mortels la main n'y touche plus! Qui peut
sonder, Seigneur, ta clmence infinie? Et vous, flau de Dieu, qui sait
si le GNIE N'EST PAS UNE DE VOS VERTUS? And what has thus been greatly
written of genius, may also surely be said in a less sense of what we
call (for lack of a better word) Manner. England has lately followed
to his grave with weeping eyes, a statesman--both honest, indeed,
and able--but whose chief claim to her affection rested upon this
comparatively humble gift, so precious because so rare. When combined
with youth and personal graces, as in Walter Lisgard's case, it is
well-nigh irresistible, and has always been so from the days of Plato
and Xenophon. Too often worthless in themselves, or rendered so by being
"spoilt" by all who meet them; not seldom empty-headed, or with heads
turned by conceit and flattery; and almost always destitute of reverence
for sacred things, whether divine or human--natural or doctrinal--we yet
prefer the company of those thus dowered to that of the Wise, the
Witty, or the Good. Their smile is a pleasure; their very presence is a
harmony; and prayerless themselves, they evoke the supplications of the
pure in their behalf.
Even Rose herself continues to be to some extent infatuated with Master
Walter--although he is her own husband--a feat surely far more difficult
of accomplishment than for the valet de chambre of a hero to believe
in his master's reputation. At all events, it is beyond question that
she grows very jealous of the captain. Master Walter has never been
jealous of her; not, indeed, that he has had any serious reason to be
so, but because such a baleful sentiment is never allowed to enter his
well-contented mind. He is thoroughly persuaded that if his wife loves
anybody else in the world beside herself--that that person is her
husband; and he is right. He, too, has a genuine affection for one other
individual beside Captain Walter Lisgard; and this is for his mother. We
all know that she returns it seventyfold.
My Lady lives a tranquil and not unhappy life in her old home with
dutiful Sir Richard, very pleasantly diversified by frequent visits
from dear Letty and her husband--their last advent being a particularly
grateful one, since they brought with them a little stranger, aged
six weeks, whom it was always a matter of difficulty to extricate from
grandmamma's loving arms. But my Lady's whitest days are those rare ones
which her darling Walter finds it possible--so pressing are his military
duties--to spend at somewhat sombre Mirk. Then she is happy; then she
is almost her old self as we first knew her, before those deep tones,
speaking from the grave, upon Mirk Abbey lawn at Christmas-time, broke
in upon her calm harmonious days. Master Walter has no child. This
troubles her sometimes; but at others she feels very thankful for it;
for if he had a son, or should Sir Richard marry and beget one, would
not a certain, however venial, imposition he perpetuated in the descent
of the title? Even now, when no great harm seems done, my Lady's
conscience is not altogether at ease; nay, once, so disturbed it grew,
that she took secret counsel on the matter with Dr Haldane.
"Dear Lady," said he, "if any human being could be bettered by
the disclosure you hint at, or any human being was wronged by your
reticence, I should be the first to say: 'Tell all;' but as things
stand, it would, in my opinion, not only be Quixotic, but downright
madness to disentomb that woeful secret, which lies buried in Ralph
Gavestone's grave. Moreover, I understood it was his dying wish that his
story should remain untold."
This last observation, delivered with great simplicity, was the best
remedy for my Lady's troubled mind that the good doctor could
have prescribed. But when this moral patient of his had left his
consulting-room quite cured, the radical philosopher permitted himself
a congratulatory chuckle. "Gad," said he (he used the interjections of
half a century ago), "it is lucky my Lady questioned me no further. My
difficulty lies in permitting a person of title more than there need
be in this misgoverned country. If the Lisgards had a peerage in their
family, I should think it my duty to explode the whole concern. But I
don't suppose one baronet more than there is any necessity to suffer,
can do much harm."
So Sir Richard Lisgard, little dreaming upon how unsatisfactory a tenure
it is held, keeps his title unmolested; and "my Lady" (Heaven bless
her!) is still the honoured mistress of Mirk Abbey.
THE END.