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Title: The Red Court Farm (Vol. 1 of 2)
A Novel
Author: Mrs. Henry Wood
Release Date: October 6, 2018 [EBook #58046]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED COURT FARM (VOL. 1 OF 2) ***
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(Cornell University)
COLLECTION
OF
BRITISH AUTHORS
TAUCHNITZ EDITION.
=============
VOL. 965.
THE RED COURT FARM.
BY
MRS. HENRY WOOD.
IN TWO VOLUMES.--VOL. I.
LEIPZIG: BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ.
PARIS: C. REINWALD & CIE, 15, RUE DES SAINTS-PÈRES.
PARIS: THE GALIGNANI LIBRARY, 224, RUE DE RIVOLI,
AND AT NICE, 48, QUAI ST. JEAN BAPTISTE.
_This Collection is, published with copyright for Continental
circulation, but all purchasers are earnestly requested not to
introduce the volumes into England or into any British Colony_.
COLLECTION
OF
BRITISH AUTHORS.
VOL. 965.
---------
THE RED COURT FARM BY MRS. HENRY WOOD.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
TAUCHNITZ EDITION.
By the same Author,
EAST LYNNE 3 vols.
THE CHANNINGS 2 vols.
MRS. HALLIBURTON'S TROUBLES 2 vols.
VERNER'S PRIDE 3 vols.
THE SHADOW OF ASHLYDYAT 3 vols.
TREVLYN HOLD 2 vols.
LORD OAKBURN'S DAUGHTERS 2 vols.
OSWALD CRAY 2 vols.
MILDRED ARKELL 2 vols.
ST. MARTIN'S EVE 2 vols.
ELSTER'S FOLLY 2 vols.
LADY ADELAIDE'S OATH 2 vol.
ORVILLE COLLEGE 1 vol.
A LIFE'S SECRET 1 vol.
ANNE HEREFORD 2 vols.
ROLAND YORKE 2 vols.
THE
RED COURT FARM.
A NOVEL.
BY
MRS. HENRY WOOD,
AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE," "TREVLYN HOLD," ETC.
_COPYRIGHT EDITION_.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LEIPZIG
BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ
1868.
_The Right of Translation is reserved_.
CONTENTS
OF VOLUME I.
CHAPTER
CHAP.
I. Introduction.
II. Robert Hunter and his Wife.
III. Clara Lake's Dream.
IV. The Accident.
V. Red or Green.
VI. Justice Thornycroft's Visit.
VII. Going Fishing.
VIII. Catching a Chill.
IX. Colour Blindness.
X. Mary Jupp's Explosion.
XI. The Dream worked out.
XII. Coastdown.
XIII. What was the Fear?
XIV. Superstitious Tales.
XV. The New Mistress of the Red Court.
THE RED COURT FARM.
PART THE FIRST.
CHAPTER I.
Introduction.
On a certain portion of the English coast, lying sufficiently
convenient to that of France to have given rise to whispers of
smuggling in the days gone by, there is a bleak plateau of land,
rising high above the sea. It is a venturesome feat to walk close
to its edge and gaze down the perpendicular cliffs to the beach
below--enough to make a strong man dizzy. A small beach just there,
called the Half-moon from its shape, nearly closed in by the
projecting rocks, and accessible only from the sea at high water; at
low water a very narrow path leads from it round the left projection
of rock. It was a peculiar place altogether, this spot; and it is
necessary to make it pretty clear to the imagination of those who read
the story connected with it. The Half-moon itself was never under
water, for the tide did not reach it, but the narrow path winding
round to the left _was;_ and that rendered the half-circular beach
unapproachable by land at intervals in the four-and twenty hours. A
few rude steps shelved down from this Half-moon to a small strip of
lower beach underneath, whose ends were lost in the sea. The
projecting rocks on either side, forming as may be said the corners of
the Half-moon, went right into the sea. Those on your right hand
(standing face to the sea) cut off all communication with the shore
beyond, for a depth of water touched them always. Those on the left
extended less far out, and the narrow path winding round them was dry
when the tide was down. It thus arose that the Half-moon could be
gained by this one narrow path only, or by a boat from the sea.
For all practical purposes it might just as well have been
unattainable. Not once in a month--nay, it might be said, not once in
twelve months--would any human being stray thither. Not only was there
no end to be answered in going to it, but the place was said to be
haunted; and the simple villagers around would sooner have spent
the night watching in the church's vaults than have ventured to the
Half-moon beach between sundown and cockcrow. The most superstitious
race of men on the earth's surface are sailors; and fishermen partake
of the peculiarity.
Turning round on the plateau now--it is called the plateau just as the
beach below is called the Half-moon--with our backs to the sea, we
look inland It is only the plateau that is high; the coast itself and
the lands around lie rather low. On the left hand (remember that our
hands have been reversed) a long line of dreary coast stretches
onwards, not a habitation to be seen; on the right lies the
village--Coastdown. Fishermen's huts are built on the side and top of
the cliffs, not there so perpendicular; small cottages dot the
low-lying grass lands; and an opening in the one poor street (if it
can be called such) of the village, shows the real useable beach and
the few fishing craft moored to it.
Standing still on the plateau, our backs to the sea, the eye falls on
a landscape of cultivated plains, extending out for miles and miles.
The only house near to the plateau is exactly opposite to it--a large
redbrick house built in a dell. It may be a quarter of a mile distant
from the edge of the plateau where we stand, but the gradual descent
of the grassy land causes it to look very much nearer. This is the Red
Court Farm. It is a low, long house, rather than a high one, and has
been built on the site of an ancient castle, signs of whose ruins may
be seen still. The plateau itself is but as wide as about a good
stone's throw; and on its lower part, not far from where it joins the
lands of the Red Court Farm, and the descent is rather abrupt, rises a
dilapidated circular stone wall, breast high, with a narrow opening
where the door used to be. This is called the Round Tower, and is
supposed to have been the watch-tower of the castle.
The Red Court stands alone, the last house of the colony, some
distance removed from any; its gates and door of entrance are at the
end of the house, looking to the village. The nearest building to it
is the small old church, St. Peter's, standing in the midst of a large
graveyard dotted with graves; with its portico-entrance, and its
square belfry, grey with age, green with patches of moss. The high
road, advancing from the open country behind--it's hard to say whence,
or from what bustling cities--comes winding by the entrance gates of
the Red Court Farm with a sharp turn, and sees two roads branching off
before it. It takes the one to the right, bearing round to the
village, passes through it, and goes careering on to Jutpoint, a small
town, some four or five miles distant, having the sea on the right all
the way. The other branching road leads past the church to the heath,
or common, on which are situated the handful of houses, all of
moderate size, inhabited by the gentry of the place.
The only good house was the Red Court Farm. Thornycroft was the name
of the family living in it. Mr. Thornycroft owned the Red Court and
some of the land around it; and he rented more, which he farmed. Many
years ago a gentleman had come down to look at the place, which was
for sale, and bought it. He was named Thornycroft. His two sons,
Richard and Harry, were fine powerful young men, but wild in their
habits, and caused some scandal in the quiet place. Previous to the
purchase, the house had been known as the Red Court, it was supposed
from the deep red of the bricks of which it was built. Mr. Thornycroft
at once added on the word "Farm"--the Red Court Farm. A right good
farmer he proved himself to be, the extent of the land being about
three hundred acres, comprising what he rented. Within a very few
years of the purchase Mr. Thornycroft died, and Richard, the eldest
son, came into possession. In the following year Richard also died,
from the effects of an accident in France. Both the brothers were fond
of taking continental trips, Richard especially.
Thus the place came into the hands of Harry Thornycroft, and he
entered upon it with his wife and little son. His ostensible residence
since his marriage had been in London; but he had stayed a great deal
at the Red Court Farm. A second son was soon after born, and some five
or six years later another boy and a girl. Mrs. Thornycroft, a gentle,
ladylike, delicate woman, did not enjoy robust health. Something in
her face and manner seemed to give the idea that she had an inward
care--that skeleton in the closet from which so few of us are quite
free. Whether it was so or not in her case none could tell. That Harry
Thornycroft made her a fond and indulgent husband--that they were much
attached to each other--there could be no doubt of. Her look of care
may have arisen solely from her state of health; perhaps from the
secret conviction that she should be called away early from her
children. Years before she died Coastdown said she was fading away.
Fade away she did, without any very tangible disorder, and was laid to
rest in a corner of the churchyard. To those who know where to look
for it, her large white tombstone may be distinguished from our
standing-place on the plateau. That grief had been long over, and the
Red Court itself again.
Mr. Thornycroft was a county magistrate, and rode in to Jutpoint, when
the whim took him, and sat upon the bench there. There was no bench at
Coastdown; but petty offenders were brought before him at the Red
Court--partly because he was the only gentleman in the commission of
the peace living at Coastdown, partly from the fact that he was more
wealthy and influential than all the other residents put together. A
lenient justice was he, never convicting when he could spare: many a
fine, that he himself had imposed from the bench at Jutpoint, was
mysteriously conveyed out of his pocket into the poor offender's to
save the man from prison. To say that Justice Thornycroft--the title
generally accorded him--was beloved in Coastdown, would be a poor word
to define the feeling of the poorer people around. He had a liberal
hand, an open heart; and no person carried a tale of trouble to him in
vain. His great fault, said the small gentry around, was unreasonable
liberality. Never was there a pleasanter companion than he, and his
brother magistrates chuckled when they got an invitation to the Red
Court dinners, for they loved the hearty welcome and the jolly cheer.
The two elder sons, Richard and Isaac, were fine towering men like
himself--rather wild both, just what Harry Thornycroft and his elder
brother had been in their young days. Richard was dark, stern, and
resolute; but he would unbend to courtesy over his wine when guests
were at table. The few who remembered the dead elder brother said
Richard resembled him much more than he did his father, as is
sometimes seen to be the case. Certainly in countenance Richard was
not like the justice. Isaac was. It was his father's fair and handsome
face over again, with its fine features, its dark-blue eyes, and its
profusion of light curling hair. There was altogether a great charm in
Isaac Thornycroft. His manners were winning; his form, strong and tall
as Richard's, had a nameless grace and ease that Richard's lacked; and
his heart and hand were open as his father's. The young one, Cyril,
was less robust than his brothers--quiet, gentle, very much like his
dead mother. Cyril's taste was all for books; to the out-of-door life
favoured by Richard and Isaac he had never been given. Richard called
him a "milksop;" Isaac would pet him almost as he might a girl; all
indulged him. To Richard and Isaac no profession was given; as yet
none was talked of for Cyril. The two elder occupied themselves on the
land--ostensibly, at any rate; but half their time was spent in
shooting, fishing, hunting, according to the seasons. "A thriving farm
the Red Court must be," quoth the neighbours given to gossip, "for the
old man to keep all his sons to it." But it was well known that Mr.
Thornycroft must possess considerable private property; the style of
living would alone prove that.
A broad gravel drive led straight from the gates to the entrance door.
There were different gates and entrances at the back of the house,
serving for farm vehicles, for servants, and for people on business
generally. The kitchens and other domestic apartments were at the
back, looking on to the various buildings behind--barns, stables, and
such like. The further end of the stables joined some of the old ruins
still standing--in fact, it may be said that part of the ruins were
used as such. The young men kept their dog-cart there--a large,
stylish affair, capable of containing no end of dogs--and the fleet,
strong, fine horse that usually drew it. The front of the house (as
already seen) faced the plateau and the sea--a wide handsome frontage
enclosing handsome rooms. And it is quite time we entered them.
Through the portico, level with the ground, and up the two steps into
the long but somewhat narrow hall--very narrow at the back, and shut
in by a door--doors opened on either side of it. The first room on the
right was the dining-room--a spacious apartment, warm and comfortable,
bright pictures on its dark wainscoted walls, a rich Turkey carpet
giving luxury to the tread. The windows were at the end, looking
towards the village and the church belfry; and the fireplace was
opposite the door. Passing up the hall, the next room was called
familiarly the justice-room. Here Mr. Thornycroft sat when offenders
were brought before him, and here he saw his farming people and kept
his papers. Beyond this was the staircase, and a door, still on the
right, opening on the passage leading to the domestic apartments. On
the left-hand side of the entrance-hall was the large drawing-room,
its windows facing the front; beyond it a smaller and plainer one,
always in use. A snug little parlour adjoined this, in which Miss
Thornycroft took her lessons: all these three faced the front. The
door at the back of the hall opened on a passage and to some rooms
used only by the gentlemen. The passage ran through to a side
entrance, which was just opposite that portion of the stables built on
the old ruins--this was convenient, since the young men, who had a
habit of coming in at all hours of the day and night, could put up
their horse and dog-cart and let themselves in with their latch-keys
without sound or movement penetrating to the family and household.
It is with the study, or Miss Thornycroft's parlour, that we have to
do today. Its window is thrown open to the hot July sun--to the green
lawn and the shrubs underneath--to the bare plateau beyond, on whose
edge a coastguardsman was pacing on duty--to the sparkling sea in the
distance. The paper of the room was of white and gold, pretty drawings
and landscapes in water-colours adorning it. Some of them had been
done by Miss Thornycroft, some by her late mother. The carpet and
chairs were green; the piano, cabinets, and other furniture were
handsome; the white curtains waved in the gentle breeze--altogether it
was a room pleasant to look upon.
Seated on the music-stool, her face to the door, was a little
middle-aged, brown woman, unmistakably French, without her tongue,
which was going fluently, a look of reproach on her naturally placid
face. It was Mademoiselle Derode, the governess, resident now some
five years at the Red Court. A simple-minded woman, accomplished
though she was--good as gold, and timid as her own nature. Richard
Thornycroft had related to her some of the ghostly tales connected
with the Red Court--or rather with its immediate environs--and she
would not have stirred out at night alone for the world. Her chamber
window when she first came faced the plateau; after hearing the
stories she begged and prayed to be removed into another. Mrs.
Thornycroft, alive then, complied with a sad smile, and reproved
Richard in her gentle manner for saying anything. If whispers were to
be believed, these same ghostly rumours were even then helping to kill
Mrs. Thornycroft.
Mademoiselle Derode was _en colère_ this morning with her pupil.
French, German, English; good music, harp, and piano; drawing and
painting; she was thoroughly versed in all, and had as thoroughly
taught. For her age, Miss Thornycroft was an exceedingly well-educated
girl, but apt at times to be a rebellious one. In fact she was growing
quite beyond the control of the little governess.
The young lady stood by the table facing the window--a tall, very
handsome girl of nearly sixteen, with her brother Isaac's fair skin
and bright features, and a suspicious look of Richard's resolute lip.
She wore a blue muslin dress, blue ribbons in her fair hair; her
pretty hands were tossing, not in play but petulance, a large white
rose, broken short off from its stalk; her well-shaped head was thrown
back; her light clear blue eyes looked out defiantly.
"As if there could be reason in it!" spoke mademoiselle in her quaint
but well-pronounced English. "You did but the little half of your
lessons yesterday; the other day before it you went out without saying
to me the one word; and now this morning you want to go out again. You
will not do any one little thing! I say, Miss Mary Anne, that it has
not reason in it."
"I promised Captain Copp I would go, mademoiselle. Mrs. Copp will be
waiting for me."
"And I promise you that you cannot go," returned the governess,
decisively. "My faith! you go, you go, you go; yesterday, today,
tomorrow; and where are your studies? I might as well take my
departure; I am of no longer use."
"I wish I was that douanier," spoke the young lady with an angry
stamp, looking out at the preventive man pacing the edge of the
plateau.
"I wish you were--for one day; you would soon wish yourself back again
into yourself, Miss Thornycroft. Will you sit down and begin your
studies?"
"No; it is too hot to work. German would give me the headache today,
mademoiselle."
"I wish your papa, Monsieur the Justice, was at home. I would appeal
to him."
"So would I. I wish he was! Papa would not make me do lessons against
my will."
"Will you come into the other room to your harp, then?"
"No," reiterated Miss Thornycroft. "When I don't want to work, I can't
work; and, excuse me, mademoiselle, but I _won't_. There! I am invited
out today, and I want to go. Mrs. Sam Copp is going to Jutpoint, and
she is to take me."
Mademoiselle got up in despair. Day by day, she saw it well, her
authority was getting less.
"Miss Mary Anne, hear me! _I will not have you go_. I defend you to
quit the house."
Mary Anne laughed disobediently.
"I shall go if Captain Copp comes for me, mademoiselle."
Mademoiselle wrung her hands.
"I will go and find Mr. Richard. He is master here when the justice is
not. I will lay the case before him and say, 'What am I to do with
this rebellions child?'"
She quitted the room on her search. Miss Thornycroft went to the
window and leaned out, wishing herself once more the preventive man,
or anybody else who had not a governess. At that moment she saw her
brother Isaac go running on to the plateau from the direction of the
village, stand a minute talking with the coastguardsman, and then come
vaulting down towards the house. It has not been mentioned that a line
of light railings enclosed the plateau below the round tower--a
boundary line between it and the Red Court grounds. Isaac Thornycroft
leaped the railings, and saw his sister. She called to him in a voice
of earnestness; he came round to the front entrance and entered the
room.
Handsome in his careless grace, and bright as the summer's morning. He
wore light cool clothes, his linen was curiously white and fine;
looking altogether, as he always did, a noble gentleman. Richard would
be in coarse things, unbrushed and shabby, for a week together; the
brothers had quite opposite instincts.
Mary Anne went up to him with a pleading voice and tears in her eyes,
all her assumption of will gone.
"Oh, Isaac!--dear Isaac! won't you help me? You are always kind."
"My little dove! what is it?"
She told her tale. Her engagement with Captain and Mrs. Copp, and
mademoiselle's cruel hardheartedness. Isaac laughed outright.
"Cruel hardheartedness, indeed! worse than that of Barbara Allen. My
pretty one!" he whispered, stooping until his lips touched her cheek.
"Well, Isaac?"
"Put on your things, and I'll smuggle you off. Quick"
She needed no second warning. In two minutes, down she was again, a
white mantle on her shoulders, a straw hat with its blue ribbons
shading her fair bright face. Isaac took her out at the front door,
just before Mademoiselle Derode got back again.
"I have sent for your brother, Mr. Richard, Miss Mary Anne,
and----_Ella n'est pas ici?_"
Mademoiselle called, and looked in this room and that. She had not
finished when Richard strode in, his face dark and stern as usual, his
shoes and gaiters dusty, his velveteen waistcoat buttoned close up,
his coat soiled. He had been helping to fill in a pond.
"Lessons! of course she must learn her lessons. Where is she,
mademoiselle?"
Mademoiselle was arriving at the conclusion that she was nowhere. One
of the housemaids had seen her dress herself, and go downstairs. Of
course she had gone. Gone in disobedience! Richard went back to his
pond, and mademoiselle sat down and folded her arms.
In the course of an hour Mr. Thornycroft came in. A handsome man
still, upright and grand; his features fair and pleasant, his smile
rather free, no grey as yet mingling with his still luxuriant hair.
Mademoiselle carried her grievance to him; as she had been obliged to
do more than once of late.
"It is not to complain of her, monsieur; I'm sure you know that, I
love her too well; but in her own interest I must speak. She is at the
age when she most needs guidance and control; and she is showing that
she has a will of her own, and will exercise it! It was always there."
"I suppose it was," said the justice. "I have a will myself. Richard
and Isaac have wills."
"If I can no longer be obeyed, monsieur, better that I should go back
to my little home in France, and make a place for a governess who will
have control."
"No, no," said Mr. Thornycroft, very quickly. "That would not do. I'll
have no fresh governess here."
"But what is to be done, monsieur?"
"I'll think of it," said Mr. Thornycroft.
CHAPTER II.
Robert Hunter and his Wife.
In the midst of the pretty and exclusive village of Katterley, an
inland spot, from twenty to thirty miles away from the sea, there
stands a charming residence, half-cottage, half-villa, called
Katterley Lodge. Its rooms are warm in winter, cool in summer; it
rises in the midst of a lovely garden, in view of magnificent scenery;
and the sweetest roses and honeysuckles entwine themselves on its
walls.
The evening August sun--July had just past--shone full on its entrance
gate; on a lady, young and fair, who was leaning over it. She may have
been about three-and-twenty, and she was dressed in white, with
ribbons in her hair. There was a remarkable refinement and delicacy in
her face, her manners, in her appearance altogether; and her soft dark
eyes had a sad expression. Did you, who may be reading this, ever
observe that peculiar, sad look--not a passing sadness, or one caused
by present care--but a fixed mournful look, implanted in the eyes by
nature? It is not a common expression, or one often seen; rely upon
it, when you do see it, it is but an index that the spirit is, or will
be, sad within.
Sauntering up the road towards the gate, encumbered with a basket, a
rod, and other apparatus pertaining to the fishing art, strode a
gentleman, carelessly switching the hedge as he passed it. No sad
expression was there about him; rather the contrary. He was of middle
height, very slender, with a frank pleasant face given to laughing,
and dark auburn hair; his manner was light, his speech free and
careless. Her face sparkled, at his approach, and she opened the gate
long before he had gained it.
"What sport, Robert? What have you brought?"
"Brought you myself," was the gentleman's reply, as he passed in at
the gate she held wide. "Thank you. How much is the toll?"
As he bent to take the "toll," a kiss, she glanced shyly in his face
and blushed--blushed brightly; although she was his wife of nearly
three years' standing. In a retiring, impassioned earnest nature such
as hers, it takes a great deal ere love can die out--a convulsion
sometimes. With her it had not begun to die.
His name was Robert Frederick Hunter. His wife liked the second name
best, and generally called him by it, but as other people adhered to
the first it may be best to do so here. His career already, young
though he was, had seen changes. Reared in middle-class life in the
North of England, practically educated, rather than fashionably, he
had served his articles to a civil engineer. Ere they were quite out,
and he free, a small fortune came to him through a relative. Mr.
Robert Hunter thought he could not do better than take to a red-coat,
and he purchased a lieutenancy in a home corps. Nearly simultaneously
with this, he met with Clara Lake, of Katterley. He fell in love with
her; at least he fancied so; she most unmistakably did with him, and
the preliminaries for a marriage were arranged. Her father made it a
proviso that he should quit the army; and that they should live with
him after the marriage at Katterley Lodge. Robert Hunter assented,
sold out, and the marriage took place. When his wife's father died
shortly after, it was found that Katterley Lodge and money amounting
to four or five hundred a year were left to her, with a condition that
Mr. Hunter should take the name of Lake. So he was mostly called in
Katterley, Lake, or Hunter-Lake; elsewhere he was as before Hunter.
Just for the present we will call him Lake, but it must not be
forgotten that Hunter was his real name.
Mr. Lake opened his basket as he got in and displayed the
contents--some fine trout. Two were ordered to be dressed, and served
with the tea. On the days of these fishing expeditions, Mrs. Lake
dined early. Occasionally she went with him. Not very often. The sport
wearied her, and but for him at whose side she sat, it would never
have been endurable. "Sport, indeed!" she used laughingly to say, "I'd
as soon be at a funeral."
"What have you been doing all the afternoon, Clara?"
"Oh, reading and working; and wishing it was time for you to come
home."
"Silly girl!" laughed he, as he played with her curls. "Suppose I
should be brought home to you some day fished out of the stream
myself; drowned and dead."
"Don't joke, please," was her reply, given in a low voice.
"It had like to have been no joke this afternoon. I all but
overbalanced myself. But for a friendly tree I should have been in;
perhaps done for."
"Oh, Robert!" she exclaimed, the bright rose fading out of her cheeks.
"And there's a fierce bit of current there, and the river is at its
deepest, and the mill-wheel a stone's throw lower down," he continued,
as if he enjoyed the sport of teasing her; which perhaps he did. "I
was an idiot never to learn to swim."
"Did you slip?" she asked in a half-whisper.
"No; I was leaning too forward and lost my balance. Oh, Clary! you are
a little coward at best. Why your heart is beating fast; a vast deal
faster than mine did, I can tell you. And where have your roses gone?"
She looked up with a faint smile.
To be affected in this manner, to agitation, merely at the recital of
the possible danger, now past, was what Mr. Lake did not understand
Neither did he understand the depth of her love, for no sentiment in
his own heart echoed to it; the time for love, with him, had not come.
"It is simply foolish, child, to feel alarm now," he said, looking at
her gravely.
"You must not go again, Robert."
The remark called forth a hearty laugh. "Not go again! What am I to
do, then, until shooting comes in?"
What, indeed? Robert Lake was an idle man. One of those whose unhappy
lot it is (the most unhappy lot on earth) to be obliged to "kill"
time, or else find it hang on their hands with a heavy weight. To a
man born to idleness, cradled in the lap of luxury, it is bad enough;
but to Robert Lake, brought up to industry, it was simply unbearable.
He was skilled and clever in his profession, and he loved it; the
misfortune of his life was having the money left to him; the great
mistake his quitting his profession. He saw it now; he had seen it
nearly ever since. Another mistake, but a smaller one, was his
retiring from the army; as he had entered it, he ought to have kept in
it. That fault was not his, but old Mr. Lake's. Lieutenant Hunter was
on a visit at his sister's when he met Clara Lake, also staying there,
the heiress in a small way. They fell in love with each other; he,
after his temperament, carelessly and lightly, a species of love that
he had felt for others, and would feel for more; she with all the
fervour, the lasting depth of an impassioned and poetic nature. When
he came to speak of marriage, and the father--an old-fashioned man who
had once worn a pig-tail--said "Yes, upon condition that you quit
soldiering and settle down with me--I cannot part with my daughter,"
Robert Hunter acquiesced without a word of murmur. Nay, he rather
liked the prospect; change of all sorts bears its charm of magic for
the young. And he was very young; but a year or so older than his
wife. They settled down in Katterley Lodge; he to idleness, and it
brings danger sometimes; she to happiness, which she believed in as
real, as a bliss that would last for ever. If there were a man more
perfect than other men on earth, she believed her husband to be that
man. A charming confidence, a safeguard for a wife's heart; but
sometimes the trust gets rudely awakened. One great grief had come to
Clara Lake--she lost her baby; but she was getting over that now.
How intolerable idleness had been to Robert Hunter at first, none save
himself ever knew. Over and over again visions of resuming his work as
a civil engineer, came pressing on him. But it was never done. In the
first year of their marriage came old Mr. Lake's long illness and
death; in the second year came the baby and a prolonged illness for
Clara; in the third year, this, the idleness had grown upon him, and
he cared less to exchange it for hard work. It is of all evils nearly
the most insidious.
All the year long, from January to December, living at Katterley Lodge
with nothing to do! And he was really beginning not to feel the
sameness. Their income, about six hundred a year in all, was not
sufficient to allow of their mixing in the great world's fair, the
London season; and one visit only had they paid the seaside. The
pretty cottage, with its roses and its honeysuckles for a bower, and
fishing for recreation in the summer season! It had a monotonous
charm, no doubt; but the young man's conscience sometimes warned him
that he was wasting his life.
The tea and the fish came in, and they sat down to it, Mrs. Lake
remarking that she had forgotten to mention his sister had been there.
"What has she come over for?"
"To see the Jupps. Some little matter of business, she said."
"Business with the Jupps! Gossiping, rather, Clary."
"She said she should remain to tea with them. I wanted her to come
back and take it with us; I told her there would be some fish. The
fish was a great temptation, she said, but she must stay at the
Jupps'! Who's this?" continued Mrs. Lake as the gate was pushed open
with a hasty hand "Why, here she is!"
"And now for a clatter." He alluded to his sister's voluble tongue,
but he got up and went out to greet her, table-napkin in hand It was
Mrs. Chester, his half-sister. She was ten years older than he, twenty
times older in experience, and rather inclined to be dictatorial to
him and his gentle wife. Her husband, a clergyman, had died a few
months back, and she was not left well-off in the world. She had just
taken a house at Guild, a place about seven miles from Katterley;
though how she meant to pay expenses in it, she scarcely knew.
"Well, Clara! here I am back again!" she exclaimed as she came in;
"like a piece of bad money returned."
"I am so glad to see you!" returned Mrs. Lake, in her warmth of
courtesy, as she rose and brought forward a chair and rang the bell,
and busied herself with other little signs of welcome.
Mrs. Chester threw off her widow's bonnet and black silk mantle. Her
well-formed face was pale in general, but the hot August sun made it
red now.
She was a little, restless woman, inclined to be stout, with shrewd
grey eyes and brown hair, and a nose sharp at the end. The deep crape
on her merino gown looked worn and shabby; her muslin collar and cuffs
were tumbled. She told everybody she was twenty-eight; Mr. Lake knew
her to be four-and-thirty.
"Such a mess it makes of one, travelling in this heat and dust!" she
exclaimed rather fretfully, as she shook out her skirts and pulled her
collar here and there before the chimney-glass. "I've nothing but my
bonnet-cap here; you won't mind it."
It was a bit of plain muslin with a widow's gauffered border. Mrs.
Chester untied the black strings of it as she turned round and fanned
herself with her handkerchief.
"Did the fish bring you back, Penelope?" asked Mr. Lake.
"Not it. When I got to the Jupps' I found they were going to have a
late dinner-party. They wanted me to stay for it. Fancy! in this dusty
guise of a costume. How delicious those fish look!"
"Try them," said Mr. Lake, passing some to her. "I have not caught
finer trout this season. Clara has some cold fowl in the house, I
think, if you have not dined."
"I dined before I came over--that is, had a scrambling sort of
cold-meat meal, half dinner, half lunch. Robert, I should like you to
catch fish for me always."
"How are you getting on with the house, Penelope?" he asked. "Are you
straight yet?"
"Oh, we are getting on. Anna's worth her weight in gold at that sort
of thing. She has been used to contrive and work all her life, you
know."
"She might be used to worse things," said Mr. Lake.
"I have got a--visitor coming to stay with me," resumed Mrs. Chester,
making a pause before the word visitor, and then going on with a
cough, as if a fish-bone had stuck in her throat.
"Who is it?"
"Lady Ellis."
"Lady Ellis!" echoed Mr. Lake, unaware that his sister had any one of
the name on her visiting list. "Who on earth is Lady Ellis?"
"Well, she is a friend of the Jupps'."
"Oh. And why is she going to visit you?"
"Because I choose to ask her," returned Mrs. Chester, in a reproving
tone meant for the public benefit, while she gave her brother a
private kick under the table. "She is a widow lady, just come home
from India in the depth of her sorrow; and she wants to find some
quiet country seclusion to put her poor bereaved head into."
Mr. Lake concluded that the kick was intended as a warning against
asking questions. He put a safe one.
"Is she staying with the Jupps?"
"Oh dear, no. She went to India a mere child, I fancy. She was very
pretty, and was snapped up by some colonel, a K.C.B., and dreadfully
old."
"Ellis by name, I presume?" carelessly remarked Mr. Lake, as he looked
for another nice piece of fish for his sister's plate.
"Colonel Sir George Ellis," spoke Mrs. Chester, in a grandly reproving
tone, as if the title were good for her mouth. "He is dead, and Lady
Ellis has come home."
"With a lac of rupees?"
"With a _lack_ of rupees," retorted Mrs. Chester, rubbing her sharp
nose. "Sir George's property, every shilling of it, was settled on his
first wife's children. Lady Ellis has money of her own--not very
much."
"And why is she coming to you?"
"I have told you. She wants quiet and country air."
"Will she pay you?"
"Pay me! Good gracious, Robert, what mercenary ideas you have! Do you
hear him, Clara? Oh, thank you; don't heap my plate like that, though
I think I never did taste such fish. The Jupps have been praising her
to the skies, one trying to out-talk the rest. Never were such talkers
as the Jupp girls."
"Except yourself," put in Mr. Lake.
Mrs. Chester lifted her eyes in surprise.
"Myself! Why, I am remarkably silent. Nobody can say I talk."
He glanced at his wife as he suppressed a smile. The matter in regard
to Lady Ellis puzzled him--at least, the proposed residence with Mrs.
Chester; but he supposed he might not inquire further.
"Should you like to take home some trout, Penelope?"
"That I should. Have you any to give?"
"I'll have them put up for you, the fellow brace to these. Mind the
youngsters don't get the bones in their throats."
"They must take their chance," was the philosophical reply. "Children
were never sent for anything but our torment. I am going to pack the
two young ones off to school."
"Have you further news from the Clergy Orphan School about James?"
"News! Yes. It is all cross together. There's not the least chance for
him, they write me word, at the election in November; I must try again
later. And now, Clara, I want you and your husband to come to me for
Sunday and Monday. Will you promise? I came over purposely to ask
you."
Mrs. Lake did not immediately answer.
"You can come on Sunday morning in time for church, and remain until
Tuesday. I don't ask you to come on Saturday evening; we shall be busy
until late. The Jupps are coming."
"All of them?" asked Mr. Lake.
"Not all. I don't know where I should put them. Some of the girls:
Mary and Margaret for two; and Oliver. I have three spare bedrooms
nearly ready."
"Three spare bedrooms? And you grumbling about the purse's
shallowness!"
"Allow me to manage my own affairs," said Mrs. Chester, equably. "You
will say 'Yes,' will you not, Clara? I want to show you my house; you
have never seen it."
Clara Lake did say "Yes;" but at the same time there was a feeling in
her heart prompting her to say "No." She neither listened to it nor
gave way to it; and yet she was conscious that it was there, as she
well remembered afterwards.
"And now I must be going," said Mrs. Chester, putting on her bonnet
and mantle. "You will come with me to the station, Robert?"
They started together: he carrying the basket of fish: and walked
slowly. As he remarked, they had plenty of time.
"I know it," she said. "I came on early to talk to you."
"About Lady Ellis and her projected visit?" he quickly rejoined. "I
thought there was some scheme agate by the kick you gave me."
"Robert, I must scheme to live."
"I think you must if you are to keep three spare bedrooms for
visitors."
"I am left a widow, Robert, with a fair amount of furniture, and a
wretched pittance of two hundred a year. How am I to live like a lady
and educate the children?"
"But why need you have taken so large a house?"
"What am I to do? How am I to eke out my means? I cannot lose caste. I
can't go and open a shop; I can't turn Court milliner; I can't begin
and speculate in the funds; I can't present myself to the Government
or the Bank of England directors, and make a curtsey, and say,
'Please, gentlemen, double my income for me, and then perhaps I can
manage to get along.' _Can_ I?" added Mrs. Chester, fiercely.
"I never said you could."
"No; I have only got my own resources to look to, and my own headpiece
to work upon. It has been ransacked pretty well of late, I can tell
you. The first idea that suggested itself to me was to educate Fanny
at home with Anna Chester's help, and to get half-a-dozen pupils as
well, on the plan of a private family. But I hated the thought of it.
I have no nerves and no patience; and I knew I should be worried out
of my very existence. Besides, education gets more fantastical every
day, and I am not up to the modern rubbish they call requirements: so
I said, 'That won't do.' Next I thought of getting three or four
gentlewomen to live with me, on the plan of a private family. Quite as
visitors, you know; and the longer I dwelt on the scheme the better I
liked it. I thought it would be a pleasant, social way of getting on;
and I determined to carry it out. Now you know why I have taken a
large house, and am putting it into good order."
"That is, you are going to take boarders?"
"If you choose to put it in that plain way. You are so very downright,
Robert. Lady Ellis is the first coming."
"How did you hear of her?"
"Never you mind," returned Mrs. Chester, who did not choose to say she
had advertised. "Friends are looking out for me in London and
elsewhere. I have had some correspondence with Lady Ellis, and she
comes to me the middle of next week. She wants quiet, she says--quiet
and country air. A most exquisite little hand she writes, only you
can't read it at sight."
"Have you references?"
"Of course. She referred me to some people in London, and also in
Cheltenham, where she is now staying. In her last letter she mentioned
that the Jupps of Katterley knew her, and that's the chief thing that
brought me over today. Mind, Robert, I did not tell the Jupps she was
coming to me as a boarder: only as a visitor. 'She writes me that you
know her,' I carelessly said to the girls, and they immediately began
to tell all they did know, as I knew they would."
"What did they say?"
"Well, the whole of it did not amount to much. At first they persisted
they had never heard of her, till I said she was formerly a Miss
Finch, having lost sight of her when she went to India. They are
charmed to hear she has come back Lady Ellis, and think it will be
delightful for me to have her with me."
"Unless you can get more boarders, Lady Ellis will prove a source of
expense to you, Penelope, instead of a profit."
"You can't teach me," retorted Mrs. Chester. "I mean to get more."
"What is she to pay you?"
"Well, you know, Robert, I can't venture upon much style at first,
wanting the means. I am unable to set up men-servants, and a service
of plate, and a pony carriage, and that sort of thing: so at present
my terms must be in accordance with my accommodation. Now what should
you think fair?"
"I? Oh, nonsense! Don't ask me."
"Lady Ellis is to pay me a hundred pounds if she stays the year; if
not, ten pounds per month. Now you see if I get four at that rate,
permanent inmates," went on Mrs. Chester, rapidly, "it will bring my
income up to six hundred pounds, which will be comfortable, and enable
one to live."
"I suppose it will."
"You suppose it will!" snapped Mrs. Chester, who was resenting his
indifferent demeanour. "It is as much as you and Clara possess. You
live well."
"We have none too much. We spend it--all."
"And more imprudent of you to spend it all! as I have often thought of
telling you, Robert Hunter. I wonder you can reconcile yourself to
live up to the last penny of your income, and do nothing to increase
it. How will it be when children come?"
"Ah, that's a question," said he, giving the fish-basket a twirl.
"You may have a large family yet; you are both young. What sort of a
figure would your six hundred a year cut when everything had to come
out of it? A dozen children to keep at home, and find in clothes, and
doctors, and sundries, and a dozen children to provide for at school,
would make your money look foolish."
"Let's see," cried he, gravely; "twelve at home and twelve at school
would make twenty-four. Could you not have added twelve more while you
were about it, and said thirty-six?"
"Don't be stupid! You know I meant twelve in all. They may come, for
all you can tell; and they'll require both home expenses and school
expenses, as you will find. It is a sin and a shame, Robert, for a
young capable man like you, to live an idle life."
"I tell myself so every other morning, Penelope."
She glanced at him, uncertain whether he spoke in jest or earnest. His
dark-blue eyes had a serious look in them, but there was a smile on
his pleasant lips.
"If you don't think well to take up civil engineering again, try
something else. There's nothing like providing for a rainy day; and a
man who lives up to his income cannot be said to do it. You cannot be
altogether without interest; perhaps you might get a post under
Government."
"I'll apply for the lord-lieutenancy," said he. "The place is vacant."
"I know you always turn into ridicule any suggestion of mine," again
retorted Mrs. Chester. "You might get into the board of works, and
leave the lord-lieutenancy for your betters. There's the train,
shrieking in the distance. Don't forget Sunday. I wish you and Clara
to see how nice the house looks."
"All right, Penelope; we will not forget. But now I want to know why
you could not have given your explanation before my wife."
"Her pride would have taken alarm."
"Indeed you cannot know Clara if you think that."
"I know her as well as you," returned Mrs. Chester. "I shall acquaint
neither her nor the Jupps of the terms on which Lady Ellis is coming."
He said no more. To keep the fact from the clear-sighted, sensible
Jupps would be just an impossibility; and he meant to tell his wife as
soon as he got home. They passed through the waiting-room to the
platform. Mrs. Chester took her seat in one of the carriages; he
handed in the basket of trout, and stood back. Just before the train
started, she suddenly beckoned to him.
"Robert," she began in a low voice, putting her head out at the window
to speak, "I'm going to give you a caution. Don't you carry on any of
that nonsensical flirting with Rose Jupp, should you ever happen to be
together in the presence of Lady Ellis. You make yourself utterly
ridiculous with that girl."
He looked very much amused. "A couple of sinful scapegoats! I am
astonished you ever have us at your house!"
"There you are, mocking me again. You may think as you please, Robert,
but it is excessively absurd in a married man. I saw you kiss Rose
Jupp the other day."
He broke into a laugh.
"Anything of that before Lady Ellis would be an awful mistake. It
might frighten her away again."
"Oh, we will both put on our best behaviour for the old Begum. Do not
let doubts of us disturb your sleep, Penelope."
"She is not old, but I daresay she knows what propriety is," sharply
concluded Mrs. Chester as the train puffed off. And Mr. Lake, quitting
the station, went home laughing.
He found his wife in a reverie. The feeling, that she had done wrong
to promise to go to Mrs. Chester's, was making itself unmistakably
heard, and Clara tried to analyse it. Why should it be wrong? It was
difficult to say. Sunday travelling? But she had gone several times
before to spend Sunday with Mrs. Chester, gone and returned the same
day; for Guild Rectory, where Mrs. Chester had lived, was short of
bedrooms. No, it was not the idea of Sunday travelling that disturbed
her, and she could find no other reason. Finally she gave up the
trouble of guessing, and her husband came in.
"Were you not too early for the train, Robert?"
"I should think so. Penelope confessed that she wiled me out to talk
of her plans. I'll tell you about them directly. What do you think she
wound up with, Clara, just as the train was starting?"
He had sat down in a large armchair, and was holding his wife before
him by the waist.
"With an injunction not to flirt so much with Rose Jupp! Which is
absurd in itself, she says, and might frighten away the grand Indian
Begum."
Clara Lake laughed. She was accustomed to witness her husband's free
rattling manners with others, but not a shadow of jealousy had yet
arisen. She believed his _love_ to be hers, just as truly and
exclusively as hers was his; and nothing as yet had shaken the belief.
CHAPTER III.
Clara Lake's Dream.[1]
[Footnote 1: The dream is not fiction: it is but transcribed, even to
the minutest particular.]
It was certainly a singular dream, well worthy of being recorded.
Taken in conjunction with its notable working out, few dreams have
been so remarkable. At least, if it may be deemed that subsequent
events did work it out. The reader must judge.
Mr. and Mrs. Lake retired to rest as usual, eating no supper. When
they had fish or meat with tea, supper was not served. On this evening
he drank some wine-and-water before going to bed; she touched nothing.
Therefore it cannot be thought she suffered from nightmare.
It was a singular dream; let me repeat the assertion. And it was in
the earlier part of the night that it visited her. How soon after she
went to sleep, how late, there were no means of knowing.
Part of the evening's doings came to her again in her sleep. She
thought that Mrs. Chester called, went on to the Jupps' house,
returned to drink tea, and gave the invitation to go to her house at
Guild on the Sunday--all just as it had been in reality. Clara also
thought that she felt an insuperable objection to go, in spite of
having accepted the invitation. Not the vague idea that had presented
itself to her awake, the half-wish that she had not made the
engagement, but a strong, irrepressible conviction that the going
would bring her evil--but accompanied with a conviction, a knowledge,
so to say, that she should go, that it was her fate to go, and that
she could not avoid it. She dreamt that Mrs. Chester had departed, and
that she was discussing the point with her husband They were in a
kitchen, a large kitchen quite strange to her, and were standing by a
small, round, dark-coloured table in its middle. The fireplace, as
Clara stood, was behind her; the window, a wide one, with an ironing
board underneath it, was in front; a dresser with shelves was on her
left hand; and there were several doors, leading she did not know
where. Altogether, the kitchen looked large and bleak, something like
those we see in farm-houses: and, seated on a chair to the right,
apparently engaged in sewing, and taking no notice of them, Clara
suddenly saw Mrs. Chester. She and her husband were discussing
earnestly--to go, or not to go. It appeared that both felt some evil
was impending, but yet both knew they _should_ go and encounter it, in
spite of the hesitation: and yet Clara seemed to feel that her husband
could have helped her to remain if he would. "What excuse can we make
for declining?" she seemed to say to him, and then they both thought
over various pleas, but none appeared to answer, and they came to the
final conclusion that go they must; which they both had known
throughout would be the conclusion. All the time they spoke, Mrs.
Chester was sitting in her chair, listening, but taking no notice; and
upon arriving at the decision Clara and her husband parted, he going
towards one of the kitchen doors, she towards the window; but so sharp
was the conviction that she was rushing upon evil, that she awoke.
Clara thought it a curious dream--curious because it represented what
had actually occurred, and the bent of her own feelings; curious also
because it was so unusually vivid, so like reality. She got out of bed
quietly, not to disturb her husband, struck a wax match, and looked at
the hanging watch. It was exactly three o'clock.
But the dream was not yet over. She went to sleep again, taking up the
thread almost at the point where she had left it. She remembered all
that had passed, _both of dream and reality_; she remembered that she
awoke in the certainty that she could not go beside the dreaded
expedition; all _that_ was plain in this, her second sleep, but she
now began making strenuous exertions to escape. She did not see her
husband again, but Mary Ann and Margaret Jupp had joined Mrs. Chester,
and the three seemed to be forcing her to go. Not by force of
violence, but of argument, of persuasion; and she still seemed to know
that they must prevail, that to withstand at the last would be beyond
her power.
The time appeared to change to the morning of departure: or rather,
with that inconsistency peculiar to dreams, it appeared to be the
morning of the departure without having changed. Still she strove
against it; not saying why, not hinting that she feared evil; of that,
she had only spoken with her husband; but striving, not to go, by
every possible argument, and by _passive_ resistance. And--strange
inconsistency!--it appeared that if she could have told them the
reason of her reluctance, her dread of evil, all would have been well;
but it was precisely to them she must not and dared not tell it.
To any who may fancy the description of the dream unnecessarily spun
out, the small details too much dwelt upon, I would say just a word.
It is difficult to shorten that real dream of midnight sufficiently
for it to be told within reasonable bounds. No pen can trace its
particulars as they appeared; no power of language describe them as
they were pictured. And now to resume it.
Mrs. Chester and the Miss Jupps urged her to depart; were waiting for
her. Clara Lake resisted. "There!" she suddenly exclaimed to them, "we
cannot go. It is past ten: we have let the hour go by, and the train
is gone." "Oh!" said Mrs. Chester, "we can get a carriage and overtake
it." She went out with them--resistance appeared to be over; she
_felt_ that it was over, and that she could not help herself--went out
to look for a carriage. They ran about, down lanes and in the open
fields, and could not see one; but a butcher's cart came up in the
lane; one of them said that would do as well as a carriage, and they
all got into it. They seemed to fly, going along at a fearful pace,
but through a most dreary-looking country, the skies gloomy, the
scenery barren, and the road muddy, so muddy that it splashed up upon
them as they sat: there were also shallow, dismal ponds through which
they drove. All this haste seemed to be to catch the train, but
suddenly a noise was heard behind them, and it was known that it was
the train: they had gone so fast as to outstrip it. Their cart stopped
to wait, and Clara, when the noise came close, looked behind, but
could only distinguish something black which whirled by them, turned
round, came back, turned again, and pulled up. "Why, it is a hearse!"
she screamed out (but in surprise, not fear), to Mrs. Chester. Yes, it
was a hearse, all black, and two men sat upon the box. Clara looked
out, expecting to see the rest of their party _on_ it, but there was
no one but the two men: the one she could not see, for he seemed to
hide his face; but she caught, fixed upon her, the strangely black
eyes of the driver, the blackest eyes she ever saw in her life: of the
rest of his face she remembered nothing. "Come," said he, "there's no
time to lose;" and they all four descended from the cart. Clara got on
to the hearse first, and was settling her cloak around her, when she
heard the cart drive off, taking the road home again; and, seated in
it as before, were Mrs. Chester and Mary and Margaret Jupp. "Why don't
you come with me?" she called out; "why are you going back?" "No,"
said Mrs. Chester, "that hearse is for you, not for us;" and they
drove off. The hearse also drove off the contrary way, and Mrs. Lake
found herself sinking into its interior. She was calm enough for a
moment, but suddenly she knew that she had been entrapped into it, and
that she was being taken to her burial.
With a dreadful scream she awoke.
The scream awoke Mr. Lake. She was bathed in perspiration, and shaking
as in an ague fit. In vain he asked what was the matter, whether she
was ill: she could not speak to tell him, and it was several minutes
before she was able in any degree to overcome the fright, or relate it
to him.
Robert Lake had no belief in dreams; was given to scoff at them; but
he had too much regard for his wife to attempt to scoff then, in her
extremity of distress and agitation. He got up and lighted a lamp, for
though morning was glimmering it could not be said to be yet light.
"I am quite certain that it is sent to me as a warning," she
exclaimed; "and I will not go on Sunday to Guild."
"I never knew before that you could believe in dreams," he answered.
"I do not believe in dreams; I have never had any particular dreams to
believe in. But you must acknowledge, Robert, that this one is beyond
common. I cannot describe to you how vivid, how _real_ everything
appeared to me. And it was not one dream; it was two: that at least is
unusual. The second dream was a continuation of the first."
"The one induced the other. I dare say you saw a hearse pass
yesterday?"
"I have not seen a hearse for ever so long," she answered, still
shivering. "But, go to your sister's, I will not. Thank heaven! though
the power to refuse was not mine in the dream, it is in reality."
But that it was not the time to do it, he could have laughed outright
at the superstitious folly. He spoke pleasant, loving words to her,
almost as one would to a frightened child, trying to soothe her back
to tranquillity.
"Clara; consider! the very fact of your being able to act as you
please, which it seems you could not do in the dream, ought to
convince you how void of meaning it was."
"I will not go to Mrs. Chester's," was all she reiterated, with a
strange sigh of relief--a sense of thanksgiving that the option was
assuredly hers.
"Wait for the morning sun," said he. "You will be in a different mood
then."
She did not rise so soon as usual. She had got to sleep again at last,
first of all making a firm inward resolution that no persuasion, no
ridicule, no "morning sun"--in whose cheery rays things indeed wear a
different aspect from what they do in the dark and weird night should
suffice to alter her determination. The warning against going she
fully believed to have been sent to her, and she would abide by it.
Mr. Lake waited breakfast for his wife. She came down in her delicate
muslin dress, looking as pretty as usual. At first she made no
allusion to the past night; neither did he--he hoped it was at an end;
but when breakfast was about half over, she glanced up at him in her
rather shy manner, speaking in a low tone.
"I have a request to beg of you, Robert--that you will not mention
this dream to any one. I will make some other excuse for not going to
Guild."
"Dream!" cried he, speaking with his mouth full. "Why, Clary, I had
already forgotten it. And so will you before the day shall be over."
She shook her head.
"I shall send word to Penelope that I cannot go."
Mr. Lake put down his knife and fork and gazed at her in astonishment.
To his sober, practical mind, his careless nature, this in truth
savoured of the ridiculous.
"Clara, you will never be so foolish! I gave you credit for better
sense. Dreams are all very well in their places--to amuse old women
and children--but in these days they should not be allowed to
influence actions. You can see the bright sunshine, the busy
work-a-day world around you, and yet you can retain remembrance of
a ridiculous dream! I thought dreams passed away with the night."
"Of course a great part of the vivid impression has passed with the
night," she replied, confessing what was the actual fact; "but I will
abide by the night's impression, nevertheless. I look at it in this
light--my remaining at home can hurt no one, it cannot bring harm in
any way, while my going may bring me harm; we cannot tell. I am fully
decided," she continued, in a firm tone; "and do you eat your
breakfast and cease staring at me."
"Perhaps you fear the train will come to grief, and pitch us all into
coffins made to fit your hearse."
"Well, I don't know," returned Clara. "If I did get into the train on
Sunday morning, I should be unusually pleased to find myself safe out
of it again."
Mr. Lake said no more; in this frame of mind reasoning was useless.
But he felt persuaded the fancy would wear away, and his wife go
contentedly enough with the rest of them.
Nothing more was said that day, which was Friday. On the next day,
Saturday, two of the Miss Jupps called on Clara, full of the following
morning's excursion. A large family was that of the Jupps--six sons
and six daughters, all living. The sons were out in the world--one in
the army, one in the navy, one in the church, one reading for the bar,
one here, one there; Oliver, the youngest of them, was just now at
home. The six daughters were all at home, and marrying men seemed to
fight shy of so large a host. Social, pleasant, chatty girls were
they, the youngest two-and-twenty, the age of the eldest locked up in
the church's register. Mr. and Mrs. Jupp were a quiet, inoffensive
couple, completely eclipsed by their sons and daughters; not that any
were undutiful, but the old people belonged to a bygone age, and were
scarcely equal to the innovations of this. Mr. Jupp had once been high
sheriff of the county: it was the one great event of the Jupps' life,
imparting to them an importance which their pride never quite lost
sight of. They lived in a large house abutting on the street of
Katterley, about five minutes' walk from Mr. Lake's.
Mary Ann and Margaret Jupp had come to gossip about the proposed
Sunday excursion. They were pleasant, voluble girls (to pay them
the compliment of still calling them girls), with light hazel eyes
and reddish hair. The sisters were all much alike--these two, the
eldest; Louisa and Rose, the youngest. They had on flimsy skirts,
nankeen-coloured jackets, and straw hats. They sat in the shady room
open to the trailing honeysuckles, talking to Clara.
"Our plans are changed," spoke Mary. "Oliver, Louisa, and Rose go
tomorrow, returning home to sleep, and I and Margaret go over the
next day."
"We think it would be so truly unconscionable to inflict four of us on
Mrs. Chester at once, with her few servants, that we have written to
tell her we will divide ourselves," interrupted Margaret, who liked to
have her share of tongue. "Mamma says she wondered at our
thoughtlessness when she heard us making the bargain."
"Mrs. Chester would not have made a trouble of it," answered Clara.
"She is not one to put herself out of the way."
"No, she is very good; but it would have been imposing on
hospitality," said Mary Jupp. "For that very reason, as mamma
observed, we ought to spare her. So Louisa and Rose spend Sunday with
her; I and Margaret Monday; Oliver goes both days."
"But you will remain for Tuesday?"
"No. Until she has her house in complete order it would be unfair to
trouble her with night guests. You and Mr. Lake of course will remain
the whole time. And now to deliver Louisa's message. Shall they call
for you here tomorrow morning, or will you be at the train?"
"I am not going," replied Mrs. Lake.
"Not going!" echoed Mary Jupp. "Good gracious! Why not?"
"It is not quite convenient. Mrs. Chester does not expect me."
"But she did expect you!" exclaimed Mary, in wonder. "Oliver saw Mr.
Lake that night after he had taken Mrs. Chester to the train, and he
told him you were going. Did you not?" she added, appealing to
Mr. Lake, who sat perched on a side table doing something to a
fishing-line.
"All right," nodded he.
"Yes, we did promise; but since then I have altered my mind, and have
written to Mrs. Chester," said Clara. "I shall go later, when she is
more settled."
"Well, I never heard of such a thing!" cried Margaret Jupp. "Oliver
and the girls will be in a way! I don't think they care to go but for
the pleasure of your company. Mr. Lake, why have you changed your
minds?"
"Ask Clara," returned he, without looking up. "It's her affair, not
mine."
The delicate pink in Clara Lake's cheeks grew a shade brighter as the
two ladies looked at her and awaited the explanation. Not choosing to
mention the dream, she was at a loss for any sound plea to make.
"I seem to have a prejudice against going tomorrow," she said, feeling
how lame were the words. "And--and I wrote to Mrs. Chester, telling
her not to expect me."
"How very odd!" cried Margaret Jupp. They were keen-sighted, those
girls, and felt sure there was some suppressed reason.
"The truth is, my wife has taken it into her head that Sunday
travelling is sinful," cried Mr. Lake, partly to help Clara out of her
dilemma, partly in the indulgence of the mocking spirit he liked so
well. "If we do venture to go tomorrow, in the teeth of the sin, she
thinks the engine will infallibly burst and blow us up."
Mrs. Lake felt vexed. It was precisely the fear her imagination
induced her to take. Unable to conceive any other probable danger, she
was unconsciously casting doubts on the safe convoy of the train. But
she had not confessed it to him.
"Do not talk nonsense," she said to her husband; and Mary and Margaret
Jupp looked from one to the other, not knowing what to think.
"My dear Mrs. Lake, they get to Guild for morning service, you know,"
spoke Margaret. "I don't see any great harm in going just that little
way on a Sunday morning."
"Robert is very stupid to say such things," returned Mrs. Lake, driven
into a corner. "I did not think anything about its being a sin. The
sin is not my objection."
"The train runs whether we passengers go in it or not; so that our
staying away is not of the least benefit in a religious point of
view," logically argued Mary Jupp. "Do pray go, Mrs. Lake."
"Not tomorrow," Clara gently said, shaking her head.
"Can't you induce her, Mr. Lake?"
"I! I have wasted all my powers of oratory; I have tried persuasion; I
have hinted at an illegitimate application of my riding-whip, and all
in vain. She's harder than a brickbat."
The young ladies laughed. "Dear Mrs. Lake, you must go, if only to
oblige us. Think of the disappointment to Louisa and Rose."
Clara remembered her dream: how Mary Ann and Margaret (the very two of
the sisters now present) had striven in it to persuade her. The
recollection only served to render her more firm. They began to fear
that there would be no prevailing, and felt half inclined to be
offended. "And yourself, Mr. Lake? Do you also remain at home?"
"Not I. I don't live in fear of the boiler's treachery."
"Of course I do not wish to prevent my husband's going," said Mrs.
Lake, hastily.
"Though you know you would rather I did not," he rejoined.
"Well, of course, if there is to be--as you say, though I don't--a
bursting of the boiler, it would be as bad for you to be in it as for
me," she said, affecting a light laugh. The truth was, she did wish he
would not go; she knew that she should feel more easy; though she
would not ask him to remain, lest it might seem selfish. The Miss
Jupps rose to leave.
"I hope you will think better of it," said Margaret. "Louisa was
saying this morning how glad she was Mrs. Lake was going. She has been
counting on you."
"Ah, well--she had better count upon me instead," cried Mr. Lake, as
he left his seat to attend them to the gate. "And mind you give my
love to Rose, and tell her I shall be a bachelor for the day."
"Don't forget that," put in Clara.
The two ladies walked away, commenting on what had passed. Clara Lake
was a poor actor, and her manner had betrayed that the true reason had
not been spoken. Margaret said she should put it down to "caprice;"
but both acknowledged that they had never known Mrs. Lake capricious
before.
Never did a more lovely day dawn than that Sunday in August. Not
another word upon the subject had been exchanged between Mr. Lake and
his wife since the visit of the Miss Jupps; she shunned it, feeling
half ashamed of herself for her persistent folly; he had given the
matter up for a bad job. After breakfast they stood together, looking
from the open window. The church bells rang out; Mr. Lake's time for
departure was drawing near.
"I must not miss the train," he carelessly observed. "'Twould be a
pity to lose the excursion such a morning as this."
"It is a most beautiful day," she sighed. "I almost envy you."
"Clara," he said, turning to her with a sudden seriousness of manner,
"I ask you to be yourself. Lay aside this folly, and act as a
reasonable woman ought. Put on your things and come with us."
She moved closer to him and spoke deprecatingly, "Do not be angry with
me, Robert; I believe I am doing right to remain away. I must remain."
"Well, of all the simpletons that ever walked, you are about the
worst," was his complimentary rejoinder as he caught up his gloves.
"Good-bye, Clary," he added, stooping to kiss her.
"Oh, Robert, I hope you will come back safely!" she said, clinging to
him as if she feared he was going away for ever; and the tone of her
voice, full of mournful wailing, struck upon the ear of her husband.
Nevertheless he went off laughing, telling her not to fear--that he'd
come back with all his legs and wings about him.
On the platform he met Louisa and Rose Jupp under the convoy of their
brother. "Then actually Mrs. Lake is _not_ coming!" exclaimed Louisa.
"And I have only come to see you off," was Mr. Lake's response. "I am
not going on to Guild."
"Oh, you barbarous deceiver!" quoth Rose. "Where are you going?"
"To church, as a respectable individual of modern society ought."
"I tell you what, Lake," interrupted Oliver Jupp, a dark, short young
man, quiet and sensible, "this is not fair. These girls entrapped me
into taking them, on the strength that you were to be one of the
party, and it's too bad to shuffle off it."
"So it is," returned Mr. Lake. "But you must talk to my wife about it.
I am the most hopelessly henpecked husband your worst fancy ever
pictured; Caudle was nothing to it."
The train went smoothly off, and Mr. Lake returned home. His wife was
leisurely attiring herself for church. She started when she saw him.
"Why, Robert, what has happened?"
"Nothing. The boiler has not gone up yet; that calamity is expected to
take place midway between here and Guild."
"Why have you come back?"
"I came back because I have got a silly child for my wife," he said,
standing in front of her, and speaking half tenderly, half severely.
"One who would have worried her foolish heart into a fever, had I
gone, believing I should never come back alive."
She wound her arms round him and pulled his face down to hers in her
fervent love, her tears falling upon it. "Oh, my darling! my dearest!
you don't know how happy you have made me!" she passionately
whispered. "How shall I thank you for giving way to my foolishness? I
_should_ have been in unhappy suspense all day long."
"I shan't give way to it the next time," cried he, as he kissed away
her tears. "And I have told the girls what a henpecked husband I am,
the slave of a capricious tyrant. Jupp won't be in a hurry to marry
after my warning example before his eyes."
"The next time!" she repeated, with a sad smile. "Robert, there will
be no next time. I shall never have such a dream again."
The Jupps went grumbling all the way to Guild. That is, the young
ladies grumbled, and their brother listened. The disappointment was
really great. Mr. and Mrs. Lake were great favourites with everybody;
just those people that make society brighter for their presence.
"Margaret says Clara Lake was taken with a capricious fit."
"Nonsense, Louisa!" spoke Oliver, at length. "She has too much innate
good feeling for caprice. Mrs. Chester has been at her domineering
ways, I expect, and frightened her poor little sister-in-law."
Guild reached, they found their way to Mrs. Chester's house, which was
just outside the town, some ten minutes' walk from the station. It was
a pretty place--old-fashioned but commodious; standing in the midst of
a productive garden, with windows opening to a large lawn. It used to
be called Guild Farm; Mrs. Chester had already changed that, and
rechristened it "Guild Lawn." She had it at a cheap rent. There were
two houses on the farm, and the farmer who rented the land lived in
the other: to let this was so much gain to him. Guild Rectory, where
Mrs. Chester had hitherto lived, was at the opposite end of the town.
The Reverend James Chester, her late husband, had been a poor curate
for the greater portion of his life. He, his first wife (who was a
cousin of the Jupps), and their only child, Anna, had lived on his
country curacy of one hundred a year. He had no residence; and none,
save themselves, knew the shifts they had been put to--the constant
scheming and contriving they had been forced to exercise to live as
gentlepeople and keep up appearances out of doors. His wife died; and,
close upon it, the bishop gave him the living of St. Thomas, at Guild.
Its emoluments were a small house and three hundred a year--great
riches, in the eyes of the Reverend James Chester. He next married
Penelope Hunter, who had two hundred a year of her own. Three children
were subsequently born, Fanny, Thomas, and James. When the girl was
ten years old and the youngest boy six, Mr. Chester died; and Mrs.
Chester was left with Anna and her own children on her hands, a little
good furniture and her two hundred a year to bring them up upon.
So--as she told her half-brother--she had to scheme to live: she took
this house, and hoped that would help her to do it.
"Well, and now what's the reason that Robert and Clara have not come?"
began Mrs. Chester, without any other greeting, as she stood, bonnet
and mantle on, to receive her guests. "I should like to know what
Clara means by it! I had the coolest letter from her!--just putting
off her visit to a future time, without saying with your leave or by
your leave."
Fine nuts for the Miss Jupps to crack! They hastily recounted what had
passed at their sisters' interview with Mrs. Lake, and her husband's
words at the train in the morning. There was no time for more.
"If you ask my opinion," said Louisa Jupp, as they hurried off to the
nearest church, "I should say that Mrs. Lake has acquired an objection
to Sunday travelling."
"What a crotchet!" concluded Mrs. Chester. "I never quite understood
my brother's wife."
CHAPTER IV.
The Accident.
It was a fine night, though not unusually light, for there was no
moon, and the heavens looked a little misty, as they do sometimes
following on a hot August day.
The nine o'clock train dashed into Guild, received its waiting
passengers, and dashed on again.
Amidst others, the Miss Jupps and their brother entered it, having
finished their day's visit to Mrs. Chester. They took their seats in
the middle compartment of a first-class carriage, and happened to have
it to themselves. The young ladies sat with their backs to the engine,
he with his face to it.
"The Lakes would have had a pleasant day had they come," remarked
Louisa. "You may rely upon it her objection lay in its being Sunday.
Perhaps she is growing religious."
"What an awful lookout for Lake!" spoke up Mr. Jupp, from his corner.
"Oliver!" reproved the young ladies.
"She'll stop his liberty and his cigars," persisted Mr. Oliver: "there
are no such martinets under the sun as your religious wives. Talking
about cigars, would it affect your bonnets, girls, if I lighted one
now?"
They screamed out together. They would not have their loves of new
bonnets poisoned and blackened with cigar smoke; they'd never be fit
to go on again. "And you must not smoke in these carriages," added
Louisa: "we are near Coombe Dalton station, and the guard would see
you."
"Pretty wives you'll make when you are married," remarked Oliver.
"Afraid of cigar smoke!"
The caution, or the bonnets, caused Oliver Jupp to keep his cigar-case
in his pocket. Coombe Dalton station, an insignificant one, was about
midway between Guild and Katterley. The train did not stop at it.
Oliver leaned from the window to take a survey of the route.
"We are close to it," said he; "yonder are the lights. Halloa! what's
the red light flashing up and down for? That ought to be a green."
"If a red light is waving in the green's place, there must be danger,"
said Rose, quickly. "Red is the danger signal."
"There's no danger. If the light indicated danger the train would come
to a standstill; it is going on at the same speed."
Scarcely had the words quitted Oliver Jupp's mouth when--they scarcely
knew what occurred. There was a shriek from the whistle, a shock; and
a shriek, not from the whistle, but from human beings in their terror.
The train came to a standstill and they with it: they and their
carriage were not hurt or inconvenienced; the carriages behind them
were not hurt, nor the carriages immediately before them, but the
foremost carriages---- What had happened?
Unstopped, and dashing on in its speed and recklessness, the engine
had dashed into some obstruction on the line, a little past Coombe
Dalton station. It ran up a bank, gave a dance, and was forced back on
the line, falling sideways, and the three foremost carriages, next to
the break van, were dragged with it. The two first, third-class ones,
were greatly injured; the third, a second class, less so. Oliver Jupp,
with other male passengers, was speedily out of his carriage, running
forward to see what assistance he could render to those, his ill-fated
fellow-creatures, some of whom were groaning in the death agony.
What a scene it was! The dark night; the hissing engine, mad
instrument of death, but harmless now; the torches brought forward
from the station to throw light upon the calamity; the figures, some
dead, some dying, lying in the midst of the wreck; the scalded, the
wounded, the bleeding; the silent and the still, the moaning and the
helpless, the shrieking and the terrified! Not here, gratuitously to
harrow feelings and sympathies, will the worst details be given; and,
adding no little to the distress and confusion prevailing, was the
uncontrollable alarm of the uninjured passengers, escaping from their
carriages and running hither and thither, uncertain where to go or
what to do. Katterley (as well as other stations) was telegraphed to
for medical assistance.
Meanwhile Robert Lake and his wife had spent an exceedingly sober day.
With the passing of the chance of danger, Clara's opinion experienced
a sort of revulsion; and she began to think--not so much of how
foolish she had been, but of how foolish she must appear in the eyes
of her practical husband She said nothing; it was the wisest plan; and
he had not alluded to it in any way. Quietly the day dragged on, and
they sat down to supper in the evening; the dinner hour on Sunday
being two o'clock.
It was at this juncture that Mary Jupp burst in without any ceremony
whatever, neither bonnet on her head nor shawl on her shoulders. The
news of the accident had spread like wildfire and penetrated to the
house of the Jupps. Of course it had lost nothing in carrying; and
Mary Jupp fully believed she should never see her sisters or brother
again alive.
"Oh, Mr. Lake!--and you to be sitting here quietly at supper! Have you
not heard the news?"
They rose up: they saw the state of alarm and agitation she was in.
Clara caught the infection, and looked as frightened as her impromptu
visitor. Mr. Lake was calm, cool; man in general is so.
"What news?" he asked. "What is it?"
"There has been an awful accident to the train at Coombe Dalton. No
particulars positively known, that we can learn, but people are saying
half the train's killed and the other half wounded."
"Sit down, sit down," said Mr. Lake, taking her trembling hands. "What
train? How did the news come?"
"Why, our train!" returned the excited girl, bursting into tears. "The
train that Oliver and Louisa and Rose must be in. Oh, Mrs. Lake! was
it true that you had a presentiment of evil happening to it?--was that
really your reason for declining to go?"
Clara, deathly pale, had sought the eyes of her husband She was
overwhelmed with astonishment and dismay; with a feeling that she
could not describe and had never yet experienced. Had they really
escaped danger, accident, perhaps death, from that strangely vivid
dream of warning? Her faculties seemed bewildered.
"How has the news reached Katterley?" repeated Mr. Lake, drowning the
words about the dream, for he was conscious that a thoughtless slip of
his had given the clue to Miss Jupp.
"By telegraph," she answered; "and one of the porters ran up to our
house to tell it, knowing Oliver and the girls went to Guild this
morning and took return tickets. The station here is already besieged
by a crowd. Poor papa is pushing his way through it."
Mr. Lake caught up his hat, when at the same moment who should come in
but Oliver Jupp. Mary seized upon him with a cry.
"Now don't smother me," cried he to her. "First of all, we are all
right; you see I am, and Rose and Louy are safe and well inside Coombe
Dalton Station. My father sent me in to tell you; he said you were
here; and he is gone home to reassure them."
"But, Jupp, how did you get to Katterley?" questioned Mr. Lake.
"I came on a stray engine. I thought they would all be in fits
together at home, and I took the opportunity offered, of coming on to
stop the alarm. The first person who laid hold of me at the station
was the poor old governor, pretty nearly in a fit himself. It's an
awful accident, though."
"How was it?" "Are many hurt?" "Did the boiler really burst?"
"If you all reiterate questions at me at once, how am I to answer?
Very few are hurt, comparatively speaking. The engine went into
something, a truck or trucks I believe, and there was a smash. The two
first carriages, both third-class, are--nowhere, and the passengers I
won't tell you about, Lake, before these two girls, for it would spoil
their night's rest. The next carriage, a second-class, was damaged,
and its inmates are bruised, but not much, I think."
"And what of the rest of the train?" breathlessly inquired Clara.
"Nothing. The carriages came to a standstill on the line, and we got
out of them."
"Are you sure there is no first-class carriage injured?" she
continued.
"Certain. So to speak, there has been no accident to the rest of the
train, beyond the delay and fright."
Mr. Lake looked at his wife and smiled. "So you would not have been
one of the injured, Clary, had you been in the train."
She shook her head. "We have not the full particulars yet. Oliver may
be deceived."
"It is exactly as I tell you, Mrs. Lake," said Oliver Jupp. "There is
no further damage."
"Are you going back to Coombe Dalton?"
"Yes, as soon as I can. But I thought it well to come on and let you
know the best and worst. Lake, will you go with me?"
"Of course," he answered.
The two young men went out together. Mary Jupp ran home, and Clara
waited the return of her husband.
It was long past midnight when he came in. They sat up talking over
the accident; the details which he had learnt, and seen. Oliver Jupp
had been quite correct in his limit of the damage. Mrs. Chester
(taking up the suggested notion that Clara Lake had stayed away
because it was Sunday) had sent a very pressing invitation for her and
her husband to come on the following day, Monday, with the two elder
Miss Jupps. Mr. Lake delivered it to her.
"Will you go, Clara?"
"Will _they_ go?" she rejoined. "Will they venture?"
"Venture!"
"After this accident?"
"I do not see why they should not. An accident two days running would
be something remarkable. What about your dream?"
"Oh, I will go, Robert. Yes. The dream has done its office and I shall
be ever thankful for it."
She spoke the last words reverently. Mr. Lake looked at her with
surprise.
"Clara, don't encourage that fancy of yours," he gravely said, his
voice taking almost a stern tone. "To be superstitious at all argues a
want of common sense; but to be _foolishly_ superstitious is a great
deal worse. No reasonable being, wife of mine, would indulge _that_."
"What do you call being foolishly superstitious?"
"The remark you have just made--that the dream had done its office,
and you should ever feel thankful for it--is an illustration. Had you
gone to Guild this morning, you know quite well that we were not to
have returned until Tuesday, therefore should not have been in the
train to-night."
"Something might have occurred to cause us to return," she
interrupted.
"Granted--for the sake of the argument. We should have travelled in a
first-class carriage, as you know; and there is no first-class
carriage injured."
He paused and looked at her. She could not deny anything he said, and
kept silence.
"Therefore, what possible bearing that dream could have had upon the
accident, or where could be the utility of the warning, which, as you
declare, it conveyed to you, not to go to Guild, I cannot see."
Neither, it must be confessed, did Clara herself see it; but she did
not lose her faith in the dream. Rather believed in it all the more
firmly, in what her husband would have called a manner void of all
reason.
The dream, as she looked at it and expressed it, had "done its work;"
and she anticipated the excursion on the morrow with renewed pleasure,
springing from a sense of relief.
Alas, alas! Poor short-sighted mortals that we are! The working out of
the ill, shadowed forth, was only just beginning.
The morning rose brilliantly; rather too much so, taken in conjunction
with the heat; and the day, as it wore on, promised to be one of the
hottest on record.
Katterley station was in a bustle not often experienced at the quiet
little place. People, idlers and others, crowded it, bent on a journey
of curiosity to Coombe Dalton. The deaths from the accident now
numbered several, and excitement was rife. Report came that the real
cause of the calamity was giving rise to dispute: on the one hand it
was said that the driver of the train had dashed through Coombe Dalton
station, regardless of the warning red light, held up as a signal that
he should stop; on the other it was maintained that no red light had
so been held.
The twelve o'clock train came steaming into the Katterley station,
where it would stay its accustomed three minutes, and those going by
it looked alive. A very few passengers got out; a vast many rushed up
to take their places. People were flocking to Coombe Dalton _en
messe_; and would be flocking there until public curiosity was sated.
A porter held open the door of a first-class carriage for a party who
were struggling on to the platform, one running before another; it
consisted of two gentlemen, three ladies, and a maid-servant. The
porter knew them well and touched his cap; Mr. and Mrs. Lake, Oliver
Jupp, and his two eldest sisters.
"Let us have the compartment to ourselves, if you can manage it,
Johnson," said Oliver in an undertone. "The day is too hot for
crowding."
"Very well, sir," replied the man. "I dare say I can contrive it."
"But now whereabouts _is_ this carriage?" called out one of the
ladies, in a hasty and rather shrieking voice, as she looked to the
right and left; "because, if it's not just in the middle, I won't get
in. I'll never put myself towards either end of a train again as long
as I live."
"Step in, step in," cried Oliver to her. "You are all right."
"Make haste, miss," added the porter. "The time's up."
"Of course it's up," repeated the young lady, who was no other than
Mary Ann Jupp; "and I wonder it wasn't up before we reached it. This
comes of putting off things till the last moment. I told you all the
clocks were slow and we should be late. If there's one thing I hate
more than another, it's the being obliged to rush up and catch a train
at the last moment! No time to choose your carriage--no time to see or
do anything; they may put you in the guard's van if they please, and
you not know it until you are off. I dare say we have come without our
tickets now. Has anybody thought of them?"
In reply, Oliver Jupp held up the six bits of cardboard for his
sister's satisfaction, and the party settled themselves in their
seats; the maid-servant, who was Mrs. Lake's, entering last.
"Why, Elizabeth, is that you?" exclaimed Miss Jupp. "I declare I never
saw you."
"Didn't you, miss?" replied the girl, who was very tall and thin. "I
walked behind you from our house."
"I thought it better to bring Elizabeth," interposed Clara Lake, who
was looking unusually lovely in her summer dress--white muslin with a
blue sprig upon it. "Mrs. Chester's servants will be glad of help with
so many of us to wait upon."
"Mrs. Chester is the best manager of a house I ever saw," cried the
Miss Jupps in a breath. They wore alpaca gowns of very light green,
and hats trimmed with velvet. "Fancy!" added Margaret, "only two
servants, and one of those you may almost call a nurse, for the
children require plenty of attending to, and yet things seem to go on
smoothly. I can't think how she contrives it."
"Trust to Mrs. Chester for contriving," said Mr. Lake. "She has to do
it. Besides, you forget Anna."
The carriage held eight. Elizabeth sat at the farther end, the seat
next to her and the seat opposite to her being empty. She kept her
head close to the open window, looking out. Railway travelling was
rare in her experience. The rest chatted eagerly, giving themselves up
to the pleasure of the moment. Something was said about the previous
day's sojourn at Guild.
"I hear it was a delightful party," Mrs. Lake remarked to Oliver Jupp.
"We wanted you and Lake to complete it," he answered. "It was too bad,
Mrs. Lake, to declare off, after having promised to go. There was an
uncommon nice girl spending the day there. She's to be there again
today, I fancy."
"Who was that?" inquired Mr. Lake, briskly, who had a propensity for
liking "nice girls."
"Don't know who she was, or anything about her," replied Oliver. "Your
sister called her Lydia, and I did the same."
"It was a Miss Clapperton," interrupted Margaret Jupp. "Louisa and
Rose were telling me about her this morning; they took an immense
fancy to her."
"Clapperton?--Clapperton?" repeated Mr. Lake. "Oh, I know; a fresh
family who have come lately to Guild. Penelope said she was getting
intimate with them. You shall not pick out nice girls for me, Jupp, if
you call her one. I saw her once: a young Gorgon in spectacles, with
prominent eyes."
"That's Nancy Clapperton, the near-sighted one," corrected Mary Jupp,
who was one of those ladies who like to put the world to rights. "It
was her sister who was there yesterday, and she is a charming girl.
Louy and Rose both say so."
"I hope she'll be there today, then," said Mr. Lake.
"She is to be there; but don't you and Oliver quarrel over her. He
monopolized her yesterday, I hear."
"We'll go snacks," said Mr. Lake. "Or else draw lots: which shall it
be, Jupp? When does the old Indian Begum make her entry?"
"For shame, Mr. Lake! You do turn everything and everybody into
ridicule," exclaimed Margaret. "I'm sure I think she will be a
delightful acquisition; so pleasant for your sister to have a
visitor."
"Well, when does she come? Nobody says she won't be an
acquisition--for those who can stand Begums. I knew one once, and she
was awful. She had gold teeth."
Margaret Jupp turned to Clara.
"Why don't you keep your husband in better order? He is incorrigible."
"I fear he is," was the answer, given with a gay smile.
"Very strange!" cried Mr. Lake. "I can't get an answer to
my question: I think it's somebody else that's incorrigible.
When--does--the--Begum--arrive? I hope that's plain enough."
"Mrs. Chester was talking of her yesterday to me," interposed Oliver
Jupp. "The Begum is expected to make her entrance on Wednesday or
Thursday."
"When the house shall have been cleared of us sinful people," added
Mr. Lake. "We are not good enough for an Indian Begum. What do you
know of this one?"
"As good as nothing," answered Margaret Jupp. "That is, of late years.
Papa and mamma used to know old Mr. and Mrs. Finch. He was a lawyer
somewhere in London, and Angeline was the daughter."
"Angeline!"
"That's her name. Isn't it a fine one?"
"Very," said Mr. Lake. "The baptismal people must have foreseen she
was destined to be a Begum."
The arrival at Coombe Dalton interrupted the conversation. Slackening
its speed, the train came to a standstill. They inquired of a porter
how long it stayed, and understood him to say "ten" minutes. So they
got out, and heard almost immediately the train puff on again. The man
had said "two." Looking at each other in consternation, a laugh
ensued. The next train came up at three o'clock, and they could only
wait.
Plenty of time now to examine the scene of the accident. They were not
the only spectators. The battered engine, the _débris_ of the
carriages were there still--not on the line, but drawn away from it.
"In shunting some trucks on to the other line, one of them broke down,
and could not be got off before our train came up," explained Oliver
Jupp. "The engine ran into it, and--we were done for."
"But how dreadfully careless of the people at the station to allow
your engine to run into it!" exclaimed Margaret. "They ought to have
signalled your train to stop."
"They did signal it," interrupted a strange voice at her elbow, and
Margaret turned to see the stationmaster, who was known to her brother
and Mr. Lake. "The red lights were exhibited at the station, and a
switchman waved the red signal light up and down, all to no purpose.
You observe that post," he added, pointing to an iron post or pillar
close to them, for he perceived she looked as if she scarcely
understood him: "that is the night signal-post. When the line is
clear, a green light is exhibited on it, as a notice that the trains
may pass; but when it is not clear, a red light is substituted, and no
train must proceed when the red light is there. Not only was the red
light shown there last night, but the switchman, alarmed at the
train's coming on so quickly, seized it, and waved it to enforce
attention. The driver took no notice, and came dashing on to
destruction."
"Was he killed?" inquired one of the bystanders, a knot of whom had
gathered round.
"No," replied the stationmaster; "and his escape is regarded as next
door to a miracle. He was flung from the engine, lay motionless, and
was carried off for dead; but it appears he was only stunned, and is
nearly well this morning. He'll have to stand his trial, of course;
and a good thing for him if they don't bring it in 'Wilful
Murder'--for that's what some of these careless engine-drivers will
come to one day."
The official spoke with a good deal of acrimony. If the blame did not
lie with the driver, it lay with _him_, and some hot dispute had been
going on already that morning.
"Does the driver deny that the red light was up?" asked Mr. Lake.
"He denies it, and stands to it," said the aggrieved stationmaster.
"He says the green lights were up as usual. The man's a fool."
"He had taken something to obscure his vision, possibly?"
"Well, no. I don't think he had done that. He is a sober man. It is a
case of carelessness: nothing else. They go driving on, full pelt,
never looking at the signals. On these quiet lines of rail, where
there's not much traffic, the danger signal is not exhibited for weeks
together. They get accustomed to see the other, and it becomes to them
so much a matter of course that it must be there, that they forget to
look at it at all. That, in my opinion, must have been the cause of
last night's work, and I see no other possible way of accounting for
it."
He turned back to the station as he spoke, and a gentleman, who had
drawn near, held out his hand to greet the Lakes and the Jupps. It was
Colonel West, an acquaintance who resided at Coombe Dalton.
"Oh, colonel," exclaimed one of the young ladies, "what a shocking
accident this has been!"
"Ay, it has. Seven picked up dead, and four more gone this morning;
besides legs, and arms, and backs broken. It is awful to think of."
"And all from one man's recklessness!" added Mr. Lake, with more
severity, more feeling, than he generally suffered himself to display.
"As the stationmaster says, they'll not be brought to their senses,
these drivers, until some of them are convicted of wilful murder. I
hope the man who drove the train last night will get his deserts."
The spectators generally, including Oliver Jupp, had strolled off in
the wake of the stationmaster, he being the one from whom most news
was to be expected, and their curiosity was craving for it. Colonel
West, a keen, sensible man of fifty, brought himself to an anchor
before Mr. Lake, touching him on the waistcoat to command attention.
"Let me disabuse your mind, at any rate. I hear they are putting the
blame on the driver; but he does not deserve it, and they must be
doing it to screen themselves. I know nothing of the man; I never saw
him in my life until this morning; but I shall stand between him and
injustice."
"In what way? what do you mean?" Mr. Lake inquired.
"They say at the station here that they exhibited the danger signal,
red, and that the train dashed on regardless of it," said Colonel
West. "I went to the inn this morning where some of the wounded are
lying, and there I found the driver--as they told me he was--on a
mattress on the floor. 'How did this happen?' I said to him. 'I don't
know how it happened, sir,' he replied; 'but I declare there was no
red signal up to stop me; the green light was up as usual.' That was
the first I had heard about the red light," continued the colonel;
"but I find the man said true, and that the whole blame is laid upon
him. Now it happens that I was in my garden last night when the smash
came, just over on the other side of the line, and I can bear the
man's assertion out. It was the green light that was up, and not the
red."
"Shameful!" exclaimed Mr. Lake, rising up at once against the
injustice in his impulsive way. "I hope, colonel, you will stand by
the man."
"You may be sure of that. I'd transport a reckless driver for life, if
I could, but I would never see an innocent man falsely accused."
Having nothing to do with themselves, they strolled into the village,
such as it was, the colonel with them. At the door of the small inn,
whose floors had been put into requisition the previous night, on the
green bench running under the windows, sat the driver of the engine,
his head tied up with a white cloth and his arm in a sling. Colonel
West introduced him: "Cooper, the driver." Cooper was a man of
notoriety that day.
"Why, Cooper!" cried Mr. Lake in surprise the moment he saw the
patient, "was it you who drove the engine last night?"
"Yes, sir, it was me," replied Cooper, standing up to answer, but
sinking back at once from giddiness. "And I can only say I wish it had
been somebody else, if they are going to persist in accusing me of
causing the accident wilfully."
Mr. Lake knew him well. He was a young man, a native of Katterley, of
very humble origin, but of good natural intelligence and exemplary
character. It was only about a month that he had been promoted to be a
driver; before that he was a stoker. "I need not have speculated on
whether the driver was overcome by strong liquor, had I known who it
was," said Mr. Lake.
"He tells me he never drinks," interposed Colonel West.
"Never, sir," said Cooper. "Water, and tea, and coffee, and those sort
of things but nothing stronger. I had a brother, sir, who drank
himself to death before he was twenty, and it was a warning for me.
This gentleman and these ladies knew him."
Mr. Lake nodded acquiescence. "So they say the red light was up, do
they, Cooper, and you would not see it?"
"I hear they are saying so at the station, sir; but it's very wrong.
There was no other light up but the one that is generally up, the
green. Should I have gone steaming on, risking death to myself and my
passengers, if the danger light had been up? No, sir, it's not
likely."
"Did you look at the signal light?" inquired Mary Jupp, who was always
practical. "Perhaps you--you _might_, you know, Cooper--have passed it
without looking just for once."
"I did look, miss; and I couldn't have been off seeing it last night,
for it was being swung about like anything. 'What's up now,' I said to
myself, 'that they are swinging the lamp about like that?' and I
thought whoever it was doing it, must have had a drop too much."
"But don't you think you might from that very fact have suspected
danger?" questioned Mr. Lake.
"No, sir, not from the green lamp. If they had wanted to warn me of
danger, they should have swung the red. Any way, I'd rather have given
my own life than it should have happened when I was driver."
"Cooper, I saw the green light swung as well as you; and I shall be
happy to bear my testimony in your favour at the proper time and
place," said Colonel West. "It is quite a providential thing that I
happened to be in my garden at the time."
"Thank you, sir," said the man, earnestly, the tears of relief and
emotion rising to his eyes.
Whiling away the time in the best way they could, they got back to the
station a few minutes before the train for Guild was expected. The
accident was the topic of conversation still.
"I have seen the driver," remarked Mr. Lake to the stationmaster. "I
know him well, a sober, steady man. He persists still that the red
signal was not exhibited; that it was the green."
"Oh, he does, does he?" returned the stationmaster. "He had better
prove it. Of course, when they are at their wit's end for an excuse,
they invent anything, probable or improbable."
"Cooper is not a man to invent. I am sure he is truthful."
"Let him wait till the inquest," was the significant reply.
The train came in, and they were taken on to Guild station. From
thence they found their way to Mrs. Chester's, losing Oliver Jupp on
the road.
"You disagreeable, tiresome things! what brings you here at this late
hour?" was the greeting of Mrs. Chester, as she stood at the door, in
no amiable mood, to receive her guests. "You knew we were to have
dined at three o'clock, and taken dessert and tea on the lawn, I have
been obliged to order the dinner to be put back."
"It was the train's fault," said Mr. Lake. "It deposited us halfway
and left us."
"Of course you must put in your nonsense, Robert, or it wouldn't be
you," retorted Mrs. Chester, who could be objectionably cross when put
out, especially to him. "Come along with me, girls, and take your
things off. Dinner will be on the table in twenty minutes."
She led the way to the staircase with scant ceremony. Mr. Lake touched
her arm.
"A moment, Penelope, just to answer me a question. Is Lydia Clapperton
here today?"
"Yes," was Mrs. Chester's answer, delivered impatiently. "Why?"
"Where is she?"
"In the garden, I think--or perhaps with the children. What do you
want to know for?"
"Only to get the start of Oliver. He monopolized her yesterday, I
hear."
"Where _is_ Oliver?" demanded Mrs. Chester, suddenly remembering that
he had not come.
"Oh! he went into the town to buy cigars, or something of the sort,"
responded Mr. Lake, as he turned to the garden, glad perhaps to get
out of the reach of his sister's anger. That something besides their
late arrival had put out Mrs. Chester was self-evident.
Across lawns, over flower-beds, behind trees, went Robert Lake, in
search of the beauty that to him was as yet a vision--Lydia
Clapperton. Good chance--or ill chance, just as the reader may
deem--took him to a small summer-house at the end of a shady
shrubbery, and in it he discerned a lady sitting; young and pretty, he
decided in the semi-light. The lattice was trellised with the green
leaves of summer flowers; roses and clematis clustered at the door.
He thought, looking at her in the subdued shade, that she must be four
or five-and-twenty. Her dress was young--young for daylight. A rich
black silk with a low body and short sleeves, edged by a ruche of
white crape, a jet chain on her white neck, and jet bracelets. She had
very decided aquiline features, thin and compressed lips. Her eyes
were such that would have been called beautiful or hideous, according
to the taste or fancy of the spectator: they were large, bold, and
intensely black. Her hair _was_ beautiful: a smooth purple black, very
luxuriant, and disposed in an attractive manner round the head.
Mr. Lake took a private view through the interstices of the green
stalks across the lattice.
"It is Lydia Clapperton," he said to himself; "and a fine girl!"
"There she is!" he began aloud, in his free and somewhat saucy
manner--a manner that women like, when displayed by an attractive
man--as he bared his head to enter the summer-house, and held out his
hand with an _abandon_ of all ceremony.
That she was surprised into the putting forth her hand in return, was
indisputable. She had been intently bending over some fancy-work,
netting; and she lifted her head with a start at the greeting, and let
fall the work.
Mr. Lake took her hand; she looked up at him and saw a gay fascinating
man, gentlemanly in the midst of his freedom. Drawing back her hand
she sat down again, perfectly self-possessed.
"I told Mrs. Chester I should come and look for you," he said, in
explanation. "I have the pleasure of knowing your sister, so we need
not wait for a formal introduction."
"And you?" cried the lady, looking puzzled.
"You have heard, no doubt, of Mrs. Chester's brother, the scapegrace.
She never gives me too good a word. I am out of her books again,
through keeping her and the dinner waiting."
It happened that the young lady had never heard of Mr. Lake, as a
scapegrace or otherwise. She did not say so, and went on with her
netting work.
"Mrs. Chester has been wondering at the non-arrival of some friends
she was expecting."
"And fuming at it too," returned Mr. Lake, with a light laugh. "We had
an adventure. Getting out at Coombe Dalton in the supposition that
there was plenty of time, the train went on without us. I am really
sorry, though, for it has delayed your dinner."
"Oh that is nothing," was the answer, spoken in a spirit of
politeness. "I would rather not dine at all than dine alone."
Mr. Lake sat down on the bench, took up her scissors, and seemed
inclined to make himself at home. She glanced at his bright blue eyes,
dancing with light gaiety and with admiration of her fair self.
"I think nothing is more pleasant than a country-house filled with
visitors," she observed, tying a sudden break in the silk of her work,
and holding out her hand for the scissors to cut the ends off.
"When they can do as they like," added Mr. Lake. "We shall remain
until tomorrow night or Wednesday morning, I believe, and must make
the most of it. And you--do you remain long?"
"My stay is quite uncertain."
"At least I hope you will be here until Wednesday. After that there'll
be nothing to stay for; all the pleasure and the freedom must end;
liberty will be replaced by restraint."
His tone had become serious. She paused again in her work, and lifted
her eyes to speak.
"What restraint?"
"Mrs. Chester has sold her liberty to a Begum. Surely you must have
heard of it! An old Indian Begum, who is coming to stay here, and
takes possession the middle of the week. We must all be upon our good
behaviour before her. No fun to go on then."
"An Indian Begum!" uttered the young lady, staring at him.
"Nothing less formidable, I assure you. She is expected to make the
journey from town on an elephant. I shall draw a sketch of her after
dinner for private circulation: shawls, fans, woolly hair, and
propriety. She's a widow; the relict of a Sir George Ellis; we must
not so much as whisper before her."
The lady laughed.
"Mrs. Chester has laid down rules for our conduct," he went on, in a
rattling sort of fashion. "The last time I was at Guild she saw me
snatch a kiss from a pretty girl who was staying with her; and a few
days ago she appeared at my house with an inquiry of what I supposed
my Lady Ellis would think of such conduct. You have no conception what
a nightmare this Begum is to me--this old relict of a K.C.B."
"Really I don't wonder. Shawls, fans, woolly hair, and, an elephant!
Old and ugly! Did you say ugly?"
"As if a Begum could be anything else! Not that her ugliness or
beauty could affect one; but her interfering with the liberty of a
fellow--that does it."
"But--according to your version--it is Mrs. Chester who seems to be
interfering; not the Begum."
"It is all the same; excepting that, for Mrs. Chester we should not
care, and for the Begum, I suppose, we must. I did think of getting a
few days' fishing here this charming weather, but that's over now. I
shall never stand that Begum--twirling one's thumbs before her; and
speaking in measured monosyllables."
The young lady bent over her netting; she had made a long stitch.
Glancing up, she saw those attractive eyes fastened on her. "Mrs.
Chester seems to wish to keep you in order," she remarked, bending
them again.
"She does. It is her vocation. I listen to her pretty dutifully, and
when her back's turned have a good laugh over it. Allow me to try and
get that knot undone for you; it is giving you trouble."
"Why, what do you know about netting?" she asked, gaily.
"A great deal. I netted a boy's fishing-net once. Those long stitches
are the very plague."
"A fishing-net!" she laughed. "Well, perhaps you did; but what do you
think you could do to this fine silk: you, with your man's fingers?"
"I can try, so as to save the trouble to you." He bent as he spoke,
and attempted gently to draw the work from her. She kept it tight. It
really looked as though they had no objection, either of them, to
lapse into a flirtation, when at that moment voices were heard, and
Mr. Lake looked up. Passing across the shrubbery, by an intersecting
walk, was Oliver Jupp, with a young lady by his side. She turned her
head, and stood still for a moment, calling out to Mrs. Chester's
children, who were behind, so that Mr. Lake had a view of her face.
"Who the deuce has Jupp picked up now?" murmured Mr. Lake, in a
half-whisper. "She's an uncommon pretty girl." The lady also looked at
them, letting her netting fall on her lap.
"Do you know who that young lady is?" he asked.
She disengaged the string from her foot, got up, and looked from the
door. Mrs. Chester's children ran across the shrubbery with fleet feet
and noisy tongues, and the sound of their voices faded away in the
distance.
"It is a Miss Clapperton. Mrs. Chester introduced her to me by that
name. Lydia Clapperton, I think, she called her."
Mr. Lake stared in his surprise. "_That_ Lydia Clapperton!"
"Mrs. Chester certainly called her so."
"Why, then--who are you?"
"I? Oh, I am the Indian Begum; but I did not come on an elephant."
His pulses stood still for a moment. But he thought she was playing a
joke upon him.
"You are not--you cannot be--Lady Ellis!"
"I am indeed. The old relict of Colonel Sir George Ellis, K.C.B."
Never in all his life had Robert Lake been so taken to, never had he
felt more thoroughly confused and ashamed. The hot crimson mounted to
his temples. Lady Ellis had sat down again, and was quietly going on
with her work.
"I humbly beg your pardon, Lady Ellis," he said, standing before her
as shamefaced as any convicted schoolboy. "I cannot expect you to
accord it to me, but I most sincerely beg it."
"I think I must accord it to you," she answered, in a pretty
tantalizing sort of manner. "Your offence was not against _me_, but
against some fabled monster of your fancy. You shall sketch her still
after dinner for private circulation."
The sound of a gong as she spoke gave notice that dinner was ready.
Mr. Lake held out his hand with hesitation.
"Will you ratify your pardon, Lady Ellis? Will you promise to forget
as well as forgive? I shall never forget or forgive myself."
She frankly put her hand into his as she rose. "I have forgiven; I
will promise to forget. But then, you know, you must not convert me
into a nightmare."
"You a nightmare!" he impulsively cried, some of his old lightness
returning to him. "If you are, it will be one of a different kind: a
nightmare of attraction," he gallantly added, as he offered her his
arm. "What did you think of me? Did you take me for a wild animal just
arrived from the savage islands?"
"No," said Lady Ellis; "that is what you took the Begum for. I found
you were under a mistake as soon as you spoke of my sister. I have no
sister. But what about your intention of fishing here? I am sorry that
I should frustrate it."
He bit his lip; he could not conceal his annoyance. "I thought you
promised to forget," he softly whispered.
"And so I will."
"When did you arrive?"
"Only an hour or so ago. Just in time to dress for dinner."
Leaving Lady Ellis in the drawing-room, he ran upstairs in search of
his wife, and found her in the chamber which had been assigned them--a
pleasant room, looking towards the lawn. She was at work: making a
doll's frock for Fanny Chester.
"How hot you look!" she exclaimed, as her husband entered. "Your face
is crimson."
"My brain is also," he replied. "What do you think?--Lady Ellis is
here."
"Mrs. Chester told us so. She had a note from her this morning, and
she herself arrived at two o'clock."
"Clary, I called her the Begum to her face."
"Oh!"
"I don't know what else I didn't call her: old and ugly, and a
nightmare; and said she was coming on an elephant. In short, I did
nothing but ridicule her. You see, I took her for that Lydia
Clapperton."
Mrs. Lake's face turned red in its turn. She was of a refined,
deeply-sensitive temperament, ever considerate of the feelings of
others.
"What apology can you possibly offer, Robert? How can you make your
peace?"
"I have made it already. She seems thoroughly good-natured, and saw
the thing as it was--a misapprehension altogether. I'd rather have
given a hundred pounds, though, than it should have happened. Why
couldn't Penelope open her mouth and tell me she had come and was in
the garden?"
He was splashing away at the water, having turned up his cuffs and his
wristbands to wash his hands, evidently not on very good terms with
himself. His wife put the doll's frock into her little ornamental
basket and stood up to wait, watching him brush his hair. Then they
were ready to go down.
"Clara."
"What?" she asked, turning round to him.
"Don't speak of this to any one, my darling. It really has annoyed me.
I do not suppose Lady Ellis will."
"Of course I will not." And he bent his hot face over his wife's, and
kissed it by way of thanks. "What is she like?" asked Clara.
"Young, and very good-looking."
A knock at the door. Mr. Lake opened it. There stood a fair girl of
fifteen or sixteen, with soft brown eyes and a pale gentle face. Her
hair, of a bright chestnut-brown, was worn plain, and her voice and
manners were remarkably sweet and gentle. It was Anna Chester, Mrs.
Chester's step-daughter. There was a sort of patient weary look about
the girl, as if she had long had to do battle with care; her black
merino dress, rather shabby, was only relieved by a bit of quilled
white net round the throat, and plain stitched linen bands at the
wrists.
"Mrs. Chester sent me to tell you that dinner is being taken in."
"We are ready for it. Here, Anna, wait a moment," added Mr. Lake,
drawing her in and shutting the door. "What brings that Lady Ellis
here? I thought she was not to come until Wednesday or Thursday."
"Neither was she," answered Anna. "It put us out very much this
morning when we got her letter, because things were not ready. But we
did the best we could."
"That accounts for Penelope's sharpness," remarked Mr. Lake. "But she
could not have come from Cheltenham this morning, Anna!"
"No, from London. She left Cheltenham on Saturday, she told, us, and
wrote from London yesterday."
"Now then, you people!" called out Mrs. Chester's voice from the foot
of the stairs.
"Come along, Anna," said Mr. Lake.
"Oh, I am not going to dine with you," was the girl's answer. "There
would be nobody to see that things went on properly, and to wash the
forks and spoons."
For Mrs. Chester had not sufficient forks and spoons to serve for all
her courses without washing. The dinner was made more elaborate than
it need have been, in honour of the first appearance of Lady Ellis at
table. Anna Chester spoke cheerfully, with patient meekness, as if it
were her province to be put upon; and Robert Lake muttered an angry
word in his wife's ear about Mrs. Chester's selfishness.
In the corridor they encountered Mary and Margaret Jupp, and all
descended together. The party was going into the dining-room; Mrs.
Chester had momentarily disappeared; Oliver was laughing with Lydia
Clapperton; Mr. Lake went up to him and claimed to be introduced; the
Miss Jupps seized upon Lady Ellis with greetings and reminiscences of
old times; and altogether there was some confusion. Clara Lake,
naturally retiring, slipped into the dining-room behind the rest, and
took her seat unobtrusively by the side of Fanny Chester. So that it
happened she was not introduced to Lady Ellis. That Indian widow,
casting her roving eyes around, heard her called "Clara" once or twice
by Mrs. Chester, and took her for the governess. A young curate in a
straight coat down to his heels, made the tenth at table.
"Mamma said I was to dine here," whispered Fanny, confidentially to
Mrs. Lake, "or else there would have been an odd number."
Mr. Lake took the foot of the table, and had Lady Ellis on his right.
They talked together a great deal. Altogether it was a very social
dinner, plenty of laughing. Anna Chester washed up spoons and forks
outside the door, kept the little boys in order, and saw to things
generally.
Dinner over, they went on the lawn, where a table was set out with
wine and fruit and cakes. But none of them seemed inclined to sit down
to it at first; preferring to disperse in groups, and flit about
amidst the walks and flowers. Oliver Jupp appropriated Lydia
Clapperton, and Mr. Lake was perfectly content that it should be so.
For himself he was everywhere; now with Mary Jupp; now with Margaret;
now with his sister; and now, and now, and now with Lady Ellis.
Chiefly with her: and she by no means objected to the companionship.
In short it was a delightful, unceremonious, laisser-aller sort of
gathering, with Mrs. Chester seated in her weeds to play propriety,
whilst her young boys, left to themselves, got into as much mischief
as they possibly could.
"And so you found yourself restless at Cheltenham?" remarked Mr. Lake,
as he and Lady Ellis emerged once more in the open ground from some
one of the many side walks.
"I get restless everywhere. India suited me best. It may be different,
perhaps, when once I settle down."
"I never saw Cheltenham. It is a charming place, according to report."
"At this season it is nothing but heat and dust. I did intend to stay
there until the middle of this week; but I couldn't do it. I could
not, Mr. Lake. So I went up to London on Saturday night, and wrote
word to your sister that she must expect me on Monday."
They were crossing the lawn. Seated now near Mrs. Chester, at the
table, was Clara Lake, who had been beguiled indoors by Fanny Chester
to the doll's frock. That important work being accomplished, Clara had
come out again. Lady Ellis--her black lace shawl draped artistically
round her shoulders, and her very brilliant black eyes darting their
glances here and there, fixed their light upon Clara.
"Who _is_ that young lady, Mr. Lake?"
He looked surprised, and then smiled. "Don't you know?"
"I don't know who she is. I know that she is one of the very boldest
girls I ever saw."
"_She_ bold!" returned Mr. Lake, in marked astonishment, while a flush
darkened his cheek. "You are mistaken, Lady Ellis."
"Bold; and unseemly bold," repeated Lady Ellis. "I speak of that young
lady who is now sitting by Mrs. Chester. Some of them called her
'Clara' at dinner. I thought she might be the governess, but she seems
to take too much upon herself for that."
"I understand of whom you speak. But why do you call her bold?"
Lady Ellis was silent for a moment, and then lifted her head. "When we
have lived in India, have travelled--in short, have rubbed off the
reserve and rusticity which experience of the world only can effect,
we like to speak out our opinion, and call things by their right
names. Half an hour ago you were with her in that walk, talking to
her; she held your arm, and she suddenly clasped her other hand over
it, and kept it there, turning her face up to yours with what looked
very like ardent admiration. It struck me as being not--not seemly."
Mr. Lake coughed down a laugh. "She has a legal right to look in my
face as ardently as she pleases: and you may fully believe me when I
assure you that from her you will never witness aught unseemly. That
young lady is my wife."
"Your--wife!" echoed Lady Ellis, taken utterly by surprise.
"My own wife." His saucy blue eyes gazed into those amazed black ones,
enjoying their confusion with an exceedingly saucy expression. Lady
Ellis burst into a laugh.
"Well, I suppose I must beg your pardon now. We all seem to be letting
ourselves in for mistakes and blunders. I thought she was a young
girl, and I did not know you were married."
"She does look young," he answered, his eyes following his wife's
pretty figure, as she went towards the house with Mrs. Chester;
"nevertheless she has been my wife these three years."
"You must have married early. Is it wise, think you, of a man to do
so?"
"Wise?--In what respect?"
"Repentance might come. Men scarcely know their own minds before
thirty."
"A great many of us risk it."
They sat down at the dessert-table, and Mr. Lake helped her to some
wine and fruit. One of the little boys ran up and clamoured for good
things in the absence of his mother. Lady Ellis privately thought that
children did not improve the social relations of the world.
Mrs. Chester had taken Clara to look at what she called the domestic
arrangements, which in reality meant the kitchens and back premises in
general. Encountering Miss Jupp as they went, she turned to accompany
them.
"Had you come at the time you ought, I should have shown you over the
house before dinner," grumbled Mrs. Chester, who could not forget the
upsetting of her plans.
"Of course we were very sorry," spoke Mary Jupp. "It is so tiresome to
put back one's dinner after it is at the fire. I should have been more
cross than you, Mrs. Chester."
"What with one thing and another, I have been cross enough today,"
confessed Mrs. Chester, giving a jerk to her widow's cap, which never
kept on two minutes together, wanting strings. "First of all, this
morning, came Lady Ellis's letter to upset me, and with nothing ready
for her!"
"Why did she come today?"
"Some whim, I suppose. It was a courteous letter of excuse--hoping I
should pardon her, and begging me not to treat her as a stranger. How
very handsome she is!"
"Her features are handsome," rejoined Mary Jupp; "but their
expression's bad."
"Bad!" cried Mrs. Chester.
"I think so. There's nothing good or kind in them; and she's eaten up
alive with vanity. You must take care of your husband, Clara, for she
seems to covet his admiration."
Clara Lake, who was in advance, looked back and laughed merrily.
"How can you put such notions in her head?" spoke Mrs. Chester,
severely. "Robert Lake's manners with women are in the highest degree
absurd; but there's no need for his wife to be reminded of it to her
face."
"I don't mind being reminded of it, Mrs. Chester. It means nothing."
"Of course it does not. I only hope Lady Ellis will not take offence
at him. What age is she, I wonder--five-and-twenty?"
"Five-and-thirty, if she's a day!" spoke Mary Ann Jupp, in her strong
decision. "She is made-up, you know--cosmetics and that, and dresses
to look young. But just look quietly at her when the sun is on her
face."
"But she cannot be that age."
"I think she is. I will ask mamma when I get home: she knows."
The subject dropped. Mrs. Chester took them round the house, and in at
the back door, showing one thing, explaining another. The larder and
the dairy were first entered.
"That is what was once the dairy," observed Mrs. Chester. "Of course,
I want nothing of the sort, not possessing cows. It will do to keep
herbs and pots and pans in. This is the kitchen," she continued,
turning into a large, convenient room on the right of the boarded
passage.
"Why, it is like print!" exclaimed Mary Jupp, in her hasty way.
"There's not a speck of dirt about it; everything is in its place. How
in the world have they got it into this order so soon after dinner?"
"This is the best kitchen," explained Mrs. Chester; "they cook in the
other. Don't you see that there's no fire? We shall use this in
winter, but while the weather is so hot, I like the cooking done as
far from the sitting-rooms as possible. Farm-houses generally have two
kitchens, you know. The other is in the yard. You can come and see
it."
They went out of the room, but Clara did not. She stood rooted to the
spot, like one in a trance, rather than a living, breathing woman. She
glanced here, she glanced there; at the doors, the large window, the
fireplace; at the furniture, and position of everything. Her breathing
came softly; she pressed her brow to make sure she was awake.
Mrs. Chester and Mary Jupp came back, and she had not stirred: her
cheek was pale, her hands were clasped, she looked very like a statue.
Mrs. Chester began explaining where the several doors led to: one down
to the cellar, one to the coal-house, one to the dairy, and one to a
china closet; four in all, besides the entrance door. Both of them
were too busy to notice her.
"Are you coming, Clara?" asked Miss Jupp, as they went out.
"Directly," she replied, speaking quietly. "Mary, I wish you would
find my husband, and tell him I want him here for a minute."
"You want to show him what a model place it is," cried Mrs. Chester,
complacently. "Do so, Clara. _He_ will never have such a kitchen in
his house."
Mary Jupp delivered the message to Mr. Lake, who was still at the
table, and peeling a pear for Lady Ellis. The objectionable boy had
disappeared. He came away when he had finished his job, leaving the
two ladies together. Mrs. Chester had hastened in dire wrath after the
other of her mischievous young sons, who was climbing up a prickly
tree, to the detriment of his clothes.
"I had no idea until just now that Mr. Lake was a married man,"
observed Lady Ellis to Mary Jupp, as she leisurely eat her pear.
"No! Then whom did you suppose Mrs. Lake was?"
"I did not suppose anything about it; I did not know she was Mrs.
Lake. Have they been married long?"
"About three years."
"Ah, yes; I think he said so. Any children?"
"There was one. A beautiful little child; but it died. Do you not
think her very lovely? It is so sweet a face!"
Lady Ellis shrugged her shoulders. "She has no style. And she seems as
much wrapt up in her husband as though they had been married
yesterday."
"Why should she not be?" bluntly asked Miss Jupp. "I only hope when I
am married--if ever that's to be--that I and my husband shall be as
happy and united as they are."
"As _she_ is," spoke Lady Ellis. "I would not answer for him."
Mary Jupp felt cross. It occurred to her that somebody might have been
whispering tales about Mr. Lake's nonsensical flirtation with her
sister Rose: and purely innocent nonsense, on both sides, she knew
that to be. "Young Lake is one of those men who cannot live without
flirtation," she observed, "who admire every woman they meet, and take
care to let her know it. His wife can afford to laugh at it, knowing
that his love is exclusively hers."
Lady Ellis drew down the corners of her mouth and coughed a little
cough of mocking disbelief; for which Mary Jupp, upright and
high-principled, could have scolded her for an hour.
"So very old-fashioned, those notions, my dear Miss Jupp. Love!"
"Old-fashioned, are they?" fired Mary.
"A woman hazards more than she perhaps bargains for, when she ties
herself, for better or for worse, to one of these attractive men: but
of course she must put up with the consequences."
"What consequences?" exclaimed Mary Jupp, feeling herself puzzled by
the speech altogether.
"The seeing herself a neglected wife: the seeing others preferred
before her--as she must inevitably do when her own short reign is
over."
"Had you to experience that?" sharply asked Mary Jupp, intending the
question as a sting.
"I!" equably returned Lady Ellis. "My husband had nothing attractive
about him, and was as old as Adam. I spoke of the wives of fascinating
men: others may humdrum on to their graves, and be at peace."
"I don't see what there is to fascinate in young Lake. He is
light-headed and careless, if that means fascination."
"Ah," superciliously remarked Lady Ellis, playing with her jet chain.
They were interrupted by Margaret Jupp, who came up with Mrs. Chester.
The young lady, hearing of the expedition to the kitchens, was not
pleased to have been omitted, so Mrs. Chester was going to do the
honours again.
"I think there's nothing so nice as looking over a house," said
Margaret. "Kitchens have great interest for me."
"I suppose I may not ask to be of the party?" interposed Lady Ellis,
looking at Mrs. Chester.
"Certainly you may: why not?" And they slowly strolled across the lawn
on the expedition.
Meanwhile Mr. Lake, in obedience to the summons, had found his wife in
the large kitchen. She was still standing in the middle of the floor,
just as though she had been glued to it.
"Did you want me, Clara?"
"Do come here," she whispered, in quite an awestruck tone. And Mr.
Lake, wondering a little, stepped up and stood beside her. Clara,
touching his arm, pointed to different features of the room, turning
about to do it.
"Do you see them, Robert? Do you remember?"
"I have not been in the kitchen before," was his answer, after a
pause, looking curiously at the room and then at her.
"It is the kitchen of my dream!"
"The what?" exclaimed Mr. Lake.
"The kitchen I saw in my dream."
He barely stopped an irreverent laugh. What he saw upon her face
arrested it.
"It is," she whispered, her voice sounding strangely hollow, as though
some great physical change had taken place within. "I described its
features to you that night, and now you may see them. We--we are
standing in the same position!" she burst forth more eagerly, as if
the fact had but that moment occurred to her. "See! I was here, you on
that side me, as you are now; here was the small round dark table
close to us; there is the large window, with the ironing-board
underneath it; there, to the left, are the dresser and the shelves,
and even the very plates and dishes upon them--"
"Of the precise willow pattern," put in Mr. Lake.
"There, behind us, is the fireplace; and around are the several doors,
in the very self-same places that I saw them," she continued, too
eager to notice or heed the mocking interruption. "I told, you it
looked like a farm-house kitchen, large and bleak: you may see that it
does, now."
"I shall begin to think that you are dreaming still," he returned.
"I wish I was! I wish I had never seen in reality the kitchen of that
dream. I did not at the first moment recognise it. When I came in with
Mrs. Chester and Mary Jupp, the place struck me as being familiar, and
I was just going to say to them, 'I must have been here before,' when
my dream flashed upon me, like a chill. I felt awestruck--sick; I
feel so yet."
"This beats spirit-rapping," said Mr. Lake. "Let us lay hold of the
table, and see whether it won't turn."
"_Why_ will you turn it into mockery?" she resumed, her tone one of
sharp pain. "You know that dream seemed to foretel my death."
"I declare to goodness, Clara, you will make me angry!" was his
retort, his voice changing to severity. "What has come over you these
last few days?"
"That dream has come over me," she replied, with a shiver. "I thought
it was done with; done with by the accident of last night; and now the
sight of this kitchen has renewed it in all its horror. If you could,
only for one minute, feel as I am feeling, you would not wonder at
me."
Her state of mind appeared to him most unaccountable: not foolish;
that was not the word; far worse than foolish--obstinate and
unreasonable. Never in his life had he spoken so sharply to her as he
spoke now. Perhaps his recent intercourse with that equable woman of
the world, Sir George's relict, had given him new ideas. "I should be
sorry to feel it, even for a minute; I should be ashamed to do so: and
I feel ashamed for you. What did you want with me?"
"To show you the kitchen. To tell you this."
He gave vent to an impatient word, and turned angrily to the door.
She, her heart bursting, went forward to the window. Just so had it
been in the dream; just so had they seemed to part, he going to the
door and she to the window; just so had been her sharp conviction of
coming evil. Mr. Lake looked back at her; she had laid her head
against the wall near the window: her hands drooped down; in her whole
air there was an utter agony of abandonment. His better nature
returned to him, and he walked across the kitchen. As he drew her face
from the wall he saw that it was white, and the tears were running
down her cheeks.
"Clara," he exclaimed, as he took her to himself, "must I treat you
and soothe you as I would a child?"
"No, treat me as your wife," she passionately answered, breaking into
a storm of sobs.
He suffered her to sob for a few moments, until the paroxysm had spent
itself, and then spoke; in a tone of remonstrance, it is true, but
with deep tenderness. "Is it possible that you can allow a foolish
superstition, a dream, to cause this wild grief?"
"It is not the dream that is causing the _grief_. You are causing
that: you never so spoke to me: when I said it might foretel my death,
you turned my words into ridicule. It is as if you do not care whether
I live or die."
"Clara, you know better. What can I do for you? How can I soothe you?"
"Do not speak to me in that tone again."
"My dearest, I will do anything you wish in reason; you know I will,
but you must not ask me to put faith in a dream. And if my voice
sounded harsh--why, it would vex any man to find his wife so foolish."
"Well, well, it shall pass; I will not vex you with it again. If any
ill does come, it must; and if not--"
"If not, you will acknowledge what a silly child you have been," he
interrupted, kissing the scalding tears from her face.
"Silly, and superstitious, if you will," she whispered, "but not a
child. I think I am less a child at heart than many who are older.
Robert, if you ever grew unkind to me, I should die."
"That I never shall, my darling."
Standing outside the half-open door, taking a leisurely survey through
the chink, was Lady Ellis, having come noiselessly along the passage
matting; not purposely to deceive, she was not aware there was
anything to see, but her footsteps were soft, her movements had mostly
something cat-like about them. She saw his face bent on his wife's,
and heard his kisses, all but heard his sweet words; heard quite
enough to imagine them. An ugly look of envy, or something akin to it,
rose momentarily to her pale features. Legitimate love such as this
had never been hers. Mr. Lake was what she had called him, an
attractive man. He had that day paid her attentions, said sentimental
nothings to her in a low voice; and there are some women who would
fain keep such men to themselves, whether they may have wives or not;
nay, their having a wife is only an inducement the more. Was Lady
Ellis one?
The smile changed its character for that of mockery. It flashed into
my lady's mind that this little domestic scene was one of
reconciliation after dispute, and that the dispute must have had its
natural rise in those recent attentions paid to herself. The voices of
Mrs. Chester and Margaret Jupp were heard approaching, and she made
her safe way back to them.
"Let it pass, let it pass, Clara," Mr. Lake said hastily to his wife,
hearing the voices also. "My dear, there is no _reason_ in your fear.
What harm do you suppose can arise from your visit here? There is no
chance of a breakdown again as we go home."
"It is just that--that I cannot see any probability of harm. But I
gave you my word just now to say no more about the matter, and I will
keep it."
"Come and walk in the air, it will do you good. Your eyes are as red
as if you had been crying for a day, Clara."
Lady Ellis pushed the door open and came in, followed by the others.
Mrs. Chester began expatiating upon the conveniences of the kitchen,
its closets and cupboards, and Mr. Lake and his wife slipped away. My
lady, looking from the window, saw him pass it towards the kitchen
garden, his wife upon his arm.
CHAPTER V.
Red, or Green?
The inquest on those killed by the railway accident took place on the
Tuesday morning. Numbers were attracted to the spot, impatient to hear
the evidence. Reports had been busy as to the conflicting nature of
the testimony expected to be given, and excitement was at its height.
While one party openly asserted that Cooper, the driver, was falsely
trying to "whiten" himself, and so avoid punishment for his
carelessness; the stationmaster was less loudly accused of having
been the one in fault, and with "taking away the man's character."
Amidst the crowd, meeting at Coombe Dalton, were Mr. Lake and Oliver
Jupp: the one went from Guild, the other from Katterley. Oliver Jupp,
with his sisters, said adieu to Mrs. Chester on the Monday evening,
and returned home: Mr. Lake and his wife stayed at Guild. Curiosity or
interest in the proceedings, or opposition in their own opinions, took
them both. Mr. Lake felt certain that Cooper spoke truth in saying the
green light was exhibited, not the red; would have been ready to stake
his life upon it. Oliver Jupp, relying upon his own eyesight, upheld
the side of the stationmaster. Each one had maintained tenaciously
his own opinion when discussing the affair at Mrs. Chester's; and they
would not have missed the inquest for the world.
In the largest room that the small inn at Coombe Dalton could afford,
the coroner and jury assembled, and proceedings commenced. About the
cause of death there could be no doubt; and it needed not the
testimony of old Dr. Marlow, of Katterley, who had been the first
doctor to arrive at the spot on the Sunday night, to prove it.
However, the requirements of law must be obeyed, and he was there with
sundry of his brethren. Next came the evidence as to the cause of the
accident.
The stationmaster, one porter, and a "switchman," comprised the
officials who had been at the station on the Sunday night. They all
gave their testimony in a very positive and unequivocal manner: that
the red lights were exhibited to give warning of danger, and that the
train, in reckless defiance of the red, came dashing on, and so caused
the catastrophe.
"What was the danger?" officially inquired the coroner.
"Some trucks were on the line just beyond the station, and had to be
shunted," replied the stationmaster. "Three minutes would have done
it; and the train would not have been kept waiting longer than that,
had it only stopped."
"What brought the trucks on the line just as the train was expected to
pass?"
"They couldn't be shunted before, because the coal waggons were in the
way."
"Why were the coal waggons there just then?"
"Because an engine had gone on and left them there."
And so on; and so on--engine, and coal waggons, and shunting, and
trucks. It was like "the house that Jack built." Nobody had been in
fault, apparently, or done anything wrong, except the miserable train
that had dashed on to its destruction, and its still more miserable
driver, Matthew Cooper.
Cooper came forward and asked leave to give his evidence. The coroner
cautioned him; he thought he had better not; it might be used against
him. But Cooper persisted; and he stood there to say what he had to
say, his pale face, surrounded by its bandages, earnest and anxious.
"I'll say nothing but the truth, sir. If that is to be used against
me, why I can't help it. I'd not tell a lie even to screen myself."
He took his own course, and gave his evidence. It was to the effect
that the green lights were exhibited as usual that night, not the red.
The coroner felt a little staggered. He knew Cooper to be a steady,
reliable, truth-telling man. One of the witnesses observed, as if in
continuation of what Cooper had just said, that "Mat Cooper wouldn't
tell a lie to screen himself from nothing." The coroner had hitherto
believed the same.
"Did you look at the lights?" he asked of Cooper.
"I looked at both, sir. The lamp that was at the near end of the
station, and the lamp on the signal-post beyond it."
"And you say they were the green lights?"
"That they were, sir. The same green lights that are always up. He had
taken the light off the post, and was swaying it about, and I couldn't
conceive what he was doing it for."
"But here are three witnesses, the stationmaster and the two men, who
have sworn that the red signals were up, and not the green," persisted
the coroner. "It is very strange that you should maintain the
contrary."
"The three may be in a league together to say so, and hide their own
negligence," audibly interposed the voice of some zealous partisan
from the most crowded part of the room. Upon which the coroner
threatened to commit anybody so interrupting, for contempt of himself
and the court.
"All I can say is, sir, that there was no difference, that night, in
the lights from those exhibited on other nights," returned Cooper.
"They were the green lights, and not the red; and if I had to die next
minute, I'd say it."
Which was altogether unsatisfactory to the coroner and puzzling to the
jury. Most of them knew Cooper well, and would have trusted him; his
voice and face, now as he spoke, bore their own testimony to his
truth. On the other side, the three station people, who were not to be
discredited, gave him the lie direct.
"Did you see the red light swung about?" continued the coroner.
"No, sir. I saw the green; and I couldn't think what it was being
swung about for."
Cooper held to this, and nothing more could be got from him--that is,
nothing to a different effect. He would have descanted on its being
the green light until night, had the coroner allowed him. When he was
done with, a gentleman presented himself for examination. It was
Colonel West.
"Can you state anything about this matter, Colonel?" asked the
coroner, when he had exchanged bows with the voluntary witness.
"Yes, I can, if you will allow me to be sworn." And sworn he was.
"In anxiety to see justice done to the driver, I have come here to
offer my testimony," began the colonel, addressing the coroner and
jury. "I am enabled to state that the light exhibited on the
signal-post, and which the man took down and swayed about, was green.
When the driver asserts that it was not red, he speaks the truth."
Some excitement. The coroner drew in his lips, the jury put their
heads together. Colonel West stood bolt upright, waiting to be
questioned.
"Were you at the station?" inquired the coroner of the witness.
"No; I was in my garden, which is precisely opposite the signal-post
on the other side of the line. I was walking about in it, smoking a
cigar. I heard the train approaching, and I saw the man take the lamp
off the post, lean forward, and swing it about, evidently to attract
attention. A minute afterwards the accident happened."
"And you say this was not the red light?"
"It was not. It was the light that is generally up, the green."
The coroner gave an expressive look at the stationmaster, which spoke
volumes, and the latter looked red and indignant. Colonel West
reiterated his assertion, as if willing that all should be impressed
with the truth, and with the injustice attempted to be dealt to
Cooper. Then he stood down.
There ensued a commotion: at least, if numerous tongues can constitute
it. The coroner interposed to stop it and restore order. When the
noise had subsided, Oliver Jupp was standing by the table in Colonel
West's place. One of the jury inquired of him why he was put forward.
"I don't know," returned Oliver. "Somebody pushed me up. I happened to
mention that I saw the light in question exhibited and swayed about: I
suppose it is for that."
"Oh, you saw it, did you," said the coroner. "Swear this witness."
Oliver Jupp took the oath accordingly, and the coroner began.
"Which light was it, the red or the green?"
"The red."
There was a pause. Perhaps more than one present thought of the old
fable of the chameleon. The room fixed its eyes on Oliver Jupp.
"From whence did you see it?" demanded the coroner.
"I was in the train returning from Guild. As we got to Coombe Dalton
station I looked out at the window, and saw a red light being waved
about. I remarked it to my sisters, who were in the carriage with me,
and one of them observed that if it was the red light there must be
danger. The accident occurred almost as she spoke."
"Are you sure it was the red light, sir?" inquired one of the jury,
all of whom had been so particularly impressed with Colonel West's
evidence.
"Certain."
"And of course he could have no motive in saying anything but the
truth," remarked the juryman to another, who seemed in a state of
perplexity.
"I a motive!" haughtily observed Oliver, taking up the words. "I am
put here simply to state what I saw, I expect; neither more nor less.
I am sorry to give evidence that may tell against Cooper, who is
respected in Katterley, but I am bound to say that it was the red
light."
"Don't you think you might have been mistaken, sir?" came the next
query; for Oliver Jupp's word, a young and little man, bore less
weight than Colonel West's, who counted five-and-fifty years, and
stood six feet two in his stockings.
"I was not mistaken. It was the red light."
Colonel West was recalled. What else could they do in the dilemma? He
stood forward, and Oliver Jupp hid his head amid the ignoble crowd
close behind.
With an apology for the apparent doubt, the same question was put to
him. Did he think _he_ could have been mistaken in supposing the light
was the green.
"Not a bit of it," the colonel answered, with good-humoured
equanimity. The lights exhibited that night were the same that always
were exhibited--green. The light he saw swayed about was the green.
"Well," exclaimed the coroner, "there's hard swearing somewhere."
And hard swearing there certainly appeared to be. As a spectator
audibly remarked, "one could not find an end out of it." The coroner
got impatient.
"It is impossible at the present stage to come to any satisfactory
conclusion, gentlemen of the jury," he observed; "and I think we had
better adjourn the inquiry, when other witnesses may be forthcoming."
Adjourned it was accordingly for a fortnight.
"But for Colonel West they'd have had it all against me," remarked
Cooper, who was feeling himself wronged.
"But for Colonel West there'd have been no further bother," cried the
aggrieved stationmaster, who thought Cooper ought to have been
committed for trial on the spot.
It was certainly singular that the only two witnesses, apart from
those interested, should testify so positively in exact opposition to
each other. As the spectators poured out of the inquest-room, they
formed into knots to discuss it. Neither the one nor the other had any
interest to favour the station people or to screen Cooper; and,
indeed, both were above suspicion of anything of the sort. Colonel
West had never before heard of Cooper; Oliver Jupp knew him, and was
evidently sorry to give evidence against him. On the other hand,
Oliver Jupp did not know the stationmaster, while Colonel West was
friendly with him.
"Will you go back with me to Guild, and stay the rest of the day?"
asked Mr. Lake, putting his arm within Oliver Jupp's.
"Can't," returned Oliver. "Promised them at home to get back with the
verdict as soon as it was over."
"But there is no verdict."
"All the same; they'll want to know the why and the wherefore."
"As if you could not keep the girls waiting for once!"
"It's not the girls, it's the old folks; and Guild has no charms for
me today. Lydia Clapperton's gone."
Mr. Lake laughed. "I say, Jupp, how could you swear so hard about the
lights?"
"They swore me. I didn't ask for it."
"I mean against Cooper."
"You would not have me say the light was green when it was red?"
"Colonel West says it was green; he was close to it."
"Moonshine," quietly repeated Oliver. "What on earth causes him to say
it I can't make out. Look there"--holding out the end of the cigar he
had lighted, and was smoking--"what colour do you call that?"
"Red. All the world could tell that."
"Why don't you say it's green?"
"Because it is not green."
"Just so. Neither was the red lamp."
"Cooper is a reliable man; I don't believe the poor fellow would tell
a lie to save himself from hanging; and Colonel West is of known
honour; both of them assert that the lights were green."
"I swear that the light exhibited and swung about was _red_," retorted
Oliver Jupp. "There; let it drop. Are you and Mrs. Lake coming home
to-night?"
"No. It was uncertain what time I might reach Guild after the inquest,
and Mrs. Chester seized upon it as a plea for urging us to remain
another night. She wants us to stay for the week, but I don't think we
shall. Clara seems rather averse to it."
They parted at the station. Oliver Jupp taking the train for
Katterley: and with him we have nothing more to do at present. Mr.
Lake got into the train for Guild.
Upon arriving at Mrs. Chester's he found the house empty. Going from
room to room in search of them, he at length came upon Anna Chester,
mending socks and pinafores.
"Where are they all?"
"I think they have gone to see the late rose show," she said; "there's
one in the town today."
He stood by while she folded some pinafores she had finished. Her
hands were quick; her sweet face was full of patient gentleness.
"It is not the right thing for you, Anna."
"It is pleasant work. I have been obliged to be useful all my life,
you know."
"I don't mean that. Why should you be left at home, while they all go
to a flower-show?"
A bloom, bright as any rose in the famous show, shone in the girl's
cheeks. She loved flowers, and looked up with a happy expression.
"Perhaps time will be found for me to go tomorrow; mamma said so. It
will be only sixpence then."
"And today it's a shilling, I suppose?"
"Yes."
Mr. Lake nodded his head once or twice in a rather marked manner, but
did not give utterance to his thoughts, whatever they might be. Anna
resumed.
"I do all the work I can--of sewing and other kinds. It has cost mamma
so much to get into this house, with the new things she has been
obliged to buy, that she says she is nearly ruined. With Lady Ellis
here, and only two servants, we could not get along at all but for my
looking to everything."
Mr. Lake went off muttering something about Penelope's selfishness.
That Anna was put upon quite like another Cinderella he had long
known, and his sense of fairness rose up against it.
"If the girl was a tyrant she'd not have stood it for a day," he
cried, as he flung himself down on a bench and raked the gravel with
his cane. "A meek temper is a misfortune."
A short while, and he heard the keys of the piano touched in the
drawing-room; a soft, sweet, musical voice broke out gently in song.
He knew it for Anna's. She had finished her work, and was snatching a
moment for music, having come in to get the table ready for tea. The
open piano tempted her. Mr. Lake listened through the song--an old
one; and put his head in at the window as she was rising.
"Sing another for me, Anna."
She started round with a blush. To believe you are singing for
yourself, and then to find you have an audience, is not agreeable.
"Oh, Mr. Lake! I did not know you were there."
"Just another, Anna."
"I cannot sing for you. I know only old songs."
"They are better than the new ones. The one you have just sung, 'Ye
banks and braes,' is worth any ten that have been issued of late
years."
"I feel quite ashamed to sing them before people; I am laughed at when
I do. Lady Ellis stopped her ears this morning. Papa loved the old
songs, and he did not care that I should sing new ones; so I never
learnt any."
He took up a book of music much worn, "Old songs," as Anna called
them. Her mother used to sing them in her youth, and the Reverend
James Chester had learnt to love them. "Robin Adair," "The Banks of
Allan Water," "Pray Goody," "The Baron of Mowbray," "She never blamed
him," "The Minstrel-boy," and many others.
It was in his hand, and Anna stood looking over his shoulder, laughing
at what Mrs. Chester sometimes called the "ancient bygones." On the
table lay a drawing that Anna had done, betraying talent; the more
especially when it was remembered that she could never sit to that, or
anything else, for five minutes at a time. Up and down continually:
called by Mrs. Chester, called by the children, called by the
servants. She had never had a lesson in drawing in her life, she had
never learnt to sing; what she did do was the result of native
aptitude for it.
Mr. Lake had the drawing in his hand when the party entered, trooping
in unceremoniously through the window, the children first. Lady
Ellis's black-lace shawl was draped around her in its usual artistic
fashion, and she wore a bonnet that could not by any stretch of
imaginative politeness be construed into a widow's. Clara was with
her, her refined face bright and radiant. The two were evidently on
good terms with each other.
Mrs. Chester did not enter with them. Her household cares worried her,
now that things must wear a good appearance for the new inmate, Lady
Ellis. She came in presently from the hall, a cross look on her face,
and spoke sharply to Anna. Selfish naturally, made intensely so by her
struggle to get along, Mrs. Chester appeared to think that for her
step-daughter to be in the drawing-room and not in the kitchen, though
it were but for a few minutes in the day, was a heinous crime.
"Robert," she said, addressing her brother, "I wish you'd come up to
my room while I take my bonnet off. I have a letter to show you."
He followed her dutifully, just as he used when he was a little boy
and she a woman grown. Mrs. Chester's room, which she shared with
Fanny, was small and inconvenient. Sweeping a host of things off a
chair to the floor in her untidy way, she graciously told him he might
sit there, but he preferred to perch himself on a corner of the
dressing-table.
"I'm torn to pieces with indecision and uncertainty," she began,
taking a letter from a drawer. "I begin to think now it might have
been better had I adhered to my first thought--that of taking pupils.
Only look at the thing I have missed!"
He held out his hand for the letter, which she struck as she spoke. In
her dictatorial manner she preferred to read it to him, and waved his
hand away.
"The Red Court Farm, Coastdown.
"MADAM,
"I have been advised to write to you by my friends here, Captain
and Mrs. Copp. They think you are making arrangements to receive
half-a-dozen first-class pupils to educate with your own daughter. I am
in search of something of the sort for my daughter, Miss Thornycroft,
and it is possible that your house may be found suitable. She will
require the best advantages, for which I shall expect to pay
accordingly.
"With your permission I will drive over one of these first days and
see you.
"And I am, madam,
"Your obedient servant,
"HARRY THORNYCROFT.
"Mrs. Chester."
"Who is Harry Thornycroft?" were Mr. Lake's first words when her voice
ceased.
"I should have been as much at fault to know as you, but for a note
Anna has had from Mr. Copp, giving a little explanation. Mr.
Thornycroft is the great man of Coastdown, it seems; a county
magistrate, very influential, and very rich. Mrs. Copp thinks he would
pay quite two hundred a year with his daughter."
"And Mrs. Copp--who is she?" repeated Mr. Lake. "And where in the name
of geography is Coastdown?"
"We shall never get on if you bother like this," returned Mrs.
Chester, irascibly. "Mrs. Copp and Anna's mother were related, and
Coastdown is a little place on the sea, about two-and-twenty miles
from here. Only fancy--only _think_--two hundred a year with the first
pupil! If I only got three others at the same terms there'd be eight
hundred a year at once--a thousand with my own income. It would be
quite delightful."
"But that's reckoning your chickens before they are hatched."
"I might have known that you'd throw some mocking slight upon it," was
the angry retort.
"No mocking slight at all, Penelope. I do not mean it as such. Of
course, if you could get four or six pupils at two hundred a year
each, it would be a jolly good thing. Only--I fancy pupils on those
terms are not so readily picked up."
"_One_, at any rate, seems ready to drop into my hands. Should Miss
Thornycroft not be placed with me after this, I shall look upon life
as very hard."
"Can't you take her, should they offer her to you, and trust to good
luck for finding others?"
"Then what am I to do about Lady Ellis?"
"Keep her also, if she will stay."
"But she would not. I sounded her this morning. Not as if I had a
personal interest in the question. Anything like a school was her
especial abhorrence, she said. She'd not enter a house where teaching
was carried on for the world."
"So that you have to choose between the young lady with her two
hundred a year and Lady Ellis?"
"In a sense, yes. But I have a difficult game to play. It strikes me
that at the very first mention of a _probable_ pupil Lady Ellis would
take fright and leave. Now, you know, Robert, I have not got Miss
Thornycroft yet, or even the promise of her; and it might happen that
the negotiation would drop through. Where should I be in that case,
with Lady Ellis gone?"
"On the ground, fallen between two stools," was Mr. Robert Lake's
irreverent answer.
It angered Mrs. Chester; but she had an end to serve, and let it pass.
"I want you and your wife to do me a favour, Robert. Stay here for a
week or two with us, paying me, of course; you know what my
circumstances are. My heart would be good to keep you, but my pocket
is not. I am so afraid of Lady Ellis finding the place dull. She has
come for a month to see how she likes it. I forget whether I told you
this yesterday. On Monday, when we were talking together after her
arrival, she said to me, 'You will allow me to stay a month to see if
the place will suit me: if it does, we will then make our agreement.'
What could I say?"
"And you fear it may not suit her?"
"I fear she will find it dull. She said this morning she thought the
house would be triste but for the presence in it of Mr. and Mrs. Lake.
Now, you do me a good turn, and stay a week or two."
"I'd stay fast enough, Penelope--there's the fishing; but I don't know
about Clara. You must talk to her."
"You must talk to her," returned Mrs. Chester. "Nobody else has a
tenth of the influence over her that you have."
"I'll see," said Mr. Lake, alighting from the dressing-table. "We'll
stay a day or two longer, at any rate: I know I can promise that."
Mr. Lake went straight to his wife, and recounted to her, word for
word as nearly as he could recollect, what Mrs. Chester had said.
There was nothing covert in his disposition: his fault, if it was a
fault, was undisguised openness. But he did not urge the matter one
way or the other. Clara looked grave at the proposition, and he left
it to her.
"I said we would remain a day or two longer, Clara. I thought you
would not object to that, as it is to do her, as she fancies, good."
"I don't mind staying to the end of the week, Robert, now we are here.
We will go home on Saturday, if you like."
"All right." And Mr. Lake strolled away in his careless lightness.
CHAPTER VI.
Justice Thornycroft's Visit.
The days passed pleasantly enough: Lady Ellis made herself agreeable,
Mr. Lake was always so; and Clara nearly forgot her dream. On the
Friday morning, a hot but cloudy day, Mr. Lake went out to fish. Lady
Ellis and Fanny Chester strolled after him; and Mrs. Chester took the
opportunity to--as she phrased it to herself--"tackle" Clara. That
estimable and managing matron beguiled the young lady into the quiet
and secluded nursery--a room above, that the children were never
in--and there burst into a flood of tears over her work, the darning
of a tablecloth, and laid her unhappy case bare in the broad light of
day.
"Only another week after this, my dear Clara! If you would but consent
to stay! Think what my position will be should Lady Ellis quit me!"
Clara hesitated. Just the same instinct arose within her against
staying at Guild, that in the first instance, the evening before the
dream, had arisen against going to it. But she was gentle, young,
pliable; it seemed to her that refusal would be an unkind thing, and
she could not form her lips to say it.
"Would another week's stay make so very much difference to Lady Ellis,
think you, Mrs. Chester?"
"My dear good soul, it would make all the difference. She'll have
become accustomed to the place then, and will not care to leave it."
"Well--I will talk to Robert when he comes in."
"Of course--if you wish. But you know, Clara, the decision lies
entirely with you. He will do what you suggest. Now, my dear, do
picture to yourself the difference in our positions, yours and mine,
and be hard-hearted if you can. You with your happy home to return to,
your three servants, and your six-hundred a year; and I with my poor
pittance, my toiling life, and my heap of children!"
Mrs. Chester showered tears upon the tablecloth in her lap, and Clara
Lake felt that she was in for it.
"If you and Robert will remain two weeks with me from the day you
came, I shall be thankful.--My goodness me! who's that?"
Mrs. Chester alluded to the clatter of some steps on the stairs, and
the entrance of two ladies. Unfortunately for Clara Lake, they were
Mary and Margaret Jupp. In high spirits, and with their usual
volubility, they explained that they had a commission to execute at
Guild for their mother, which gave them the opportunity of paying a
flying call at Mrs. Chester's.
Not so very flying; for the young ladies took off their bonnets and
made themselves comfortable for an hour or two. Mrs. Chester--craftily
foreseeing what valuable allies these would prove--melted into tears
again, and renewed her request to Mrs. Lake. Abandoning pride and its
reticence, she openly explained what a boon to her, poor distressed
woman, it was that she was craving for, and avowed her poverty, and
the terms on which Lady Ellis had come to her. The Miss Jupps had
known all about it before, as Mrs. Chester knew, but she took
advantage of the situation.
They did the same. In their open good nature, and they had no other
motive, they urged Clara to the promise. On the one hand, there would
be the service to Mrs. Chester; on the other, a delightful holiday for
Mr. and Mrs. Lake. Borne along on the stream of persuasion, assailed
on all sides, Clara Lake felt that all power of resistance was taken
from her, and she yielded to the stream.
Yielded to the stream, and gave the promise.
The Miss Jupps were clapping their hands at the victory, when Mr. Lake
entered. Mrs. Chester explained the applause, by saying that dear
Clara had promised to remain a fortnight at Guild.
"Have you?" he asked, turning to his wife.
"Yes; I have been over-persuaded," she replied, with rather a sickly
smile.
The Miss Jupps applauded again, and a happy thought struck Mr. Lake;
or an unhappy one. You can decide which as the history goes on.
It had been in contemplation to throw out a bay window in their
dining-room at Katterley. A dark room and rather small, Mr. Lake and
his wife had both decided that it should be altered. This, as it
seemed to him, was the very time to set about the alteration. They had
thought of deferring it until spring, but it would be a good thing
over; and he intended to have some of his Yorkshire friends up for
Christmas. Approaching his wife, he spoke to her in a low tone.
"Begin the alteration now!--while we are here!" she exclaimed, in
surprise. "But, Robert! how long will they be over it?"
"About a fortnight. They may begin and end it in that time."
"Do you think so?"
"I'm sure so," he answered, carelessly and confidently. "I'll make
Peters put it in his contract. Why, Clara, what is it? just the
throwing out of a window? They might do it in a week if they chose.
But just as you like, my dear."
Again, hearing the conversation, Mrs. Chester and the Miss Jupps
joined in, taking wholly Mr. Lake's view of the matter. The only one
who spoke with an interested motive was Mrs. Chester: the others were
as honest as the day in what they said--honest in their inexperience.
And Clara was borne down once more in this as in the last, and agreed
to the alteration being begun.
"It won't be much more than putting in a fresh window frame," decided
Margaret Jupp.
No more shilly-shallyings now, no more questions of whether they
should go or not. Mr. Lake went over that same afternoon to Katterley,
in attendance on the Miss Jupps; saw the builder, Peters, and had the
work put in hand On the Saturday he and his wife both went over, to
return in the evening.
It was a sultry midday. Lady Ellis sat on the lawn under the shelter
of a spreading lime-tree, whose branches had been more redolent of
perfume a month or two ago than they were now.
The sky was cloudless, of a dark hot blue; the summer petals,
clustering on the flower-beds, opened themselves to the blistering
sun. Lady Ellis was alone with her netting. She wore a black silk gown
and little cap of net, all the more coquettish for its simplicity, its
plain lappets hanging behind. Her work proceeded slowly, and finally
she let it fall on her knee as one utterly weary.
"What a life it is here!" she murmured in self-commune. "Say what they
will, India is the paradise of women. Where means are in accordance;
servants, dress, carriages, horses, incessant gaiety, it may be
tolerable here; but where they are lacking--good heavens! how do
people manage to exist?"
"The world has gone hard with me," she resumed after a pause. "Two
years of luxury to be succeeded by stagnation. I'd never have married
Colonel Ellis--no, though he did give me a title--had I supposed his
money would go to his children and not to me."
Another pause, during which she jerked the netting-silk up and down.
"And this house? shall I stay in it? But for that young man, who is
rendering it bearable, I don't think I could. This managing
clergyman's widow, with her flock of young ones, she is a study from
nature--or art. Ah well, well! a month or two of it, and I shall go on
the wing again."
Closing her eyes, as if weary with the world's view, Lady Ellis
remained perfectly still, until the sound of rapidly advancing wheels
aroused her. Looking up, she saw a very handsome carriage, a sort of
mail phaeton, dash up to the gate. The gentleman driving got out and
assisted down a girl of fair beauty, who had sat by his side; the
groom having sprung round to the horses' heads from the seat behind.
They came up the path, and Lady Ellis looked at them. An exceedingly
fine man, of middle age, tall and upright, with a handsome face still,
and clear blue eyes. The girl was handsome too, she wore a beautiful
dress of training silk, and a hat with blue ribbons. We have met them
before--Mr. and Miss Thornycroft.
Looking about, as if seeking for the door of entrance, or for some one
to receive them, their eyes fell upon Lady Ellis. She could do nothing
less than advance to the rescue. Missing the turning that led by a
shady path to the door, they could see only windows. Mr. Thornycroft
raised his hat.
"I have the honour of speaking to Mrs. Chester?"
Lady Ellis laughed slightly at the supposition, and threw back her
head, as much as to say it was a ridiculous and not flattering
mistake.
"No, indeed. I am only staying here."
Mr. Thornycroft bowed in deprecation; Miss Thornycroft turned her head
slightly aside and took a look at the speaker. There was a slight
contraction on that young lady's queenly brow as she turned it back
again.
Out of an upper window, surveying the new guests, surveying the
carriage being driven away by the groom to the nearest inn, was the
head of Mrs. Chester; her cap off, her hair untidy, a cross look in
her wondering eyes. Who were they, these people, interrupting her at
that unseasonable hour? Strange to say, the truth did not strike her.
They were underneath the windows, and she could take her survey at
leisure.
Lady Ellis, quite capable of doing the honours of reception, ushered
them into the drawing-room through the open window. At the same moment
Anna Chester came forward in her poor frock and with her sweet face.
Mr. Thornycroft had laid a card on the table, and she glanced at it in
passing. Her manners were calm, self-possessed, gentle; an essentially
ladylike girl in spite of the frock.
"I will tell mamma that you are here," she said, when they were
seated; and she quitted the room again.
"Had I seen that young lady first, I should not have committed the
mistake of taking you for Mrs. Chester," spoke Mr. Thornycroft in his
gallantry.
Lady Ellis smiled. "That young lady is not Mrs. Chester's daughter,
however. Mrs. Chester's children are considerably younger."
Anna meanwhile was going upstairs. Mrs. Chester, doing something to
the inside of a bed, had her black dress covered with fluff, and her
hair also. She turned sharply round when Anna entered.
"Mamma, it is Justice Thornycroft."
What with the startling announcement--for Mrs. Chester took in the
news at once--and what with the recollection of her own state of
attire, Mrs. Chester turned her irritability upon Anna. It was
provoking thus to be interrupted at her very necessary work.
"_Justice_ Thornycroft! What in the world possesses you to call the
man that, Anna Chester?"
"Mrs. Copp called him so in her letter to me, mamma."
"Mrs. Copp's a fool," retorted the bewildered lady. "Justice
Thornycroft! One would think you had been bred in a wood. Who do you
suppose uses those obsolete terms now? What brings him here today?"
She put the question in a sharp, exacting tone, just as if it were
Anna's business to answer it, and Anna's fault that he had come. Anna
quietly went to a closet and took out Mrs. Chester's best gown.
"To come on a Saturday! Nothing was ever so unreasonable," groaned
Mrs. Chester. "Here's all the flock and the down out of the bed, and I
covered with it. Look at my crape! Look at my hair! I took off my cap
because those bothering lappets got in my way."
"You will have your gown changed in two minutes, mamma, and I will
smooth your hair."
Mrs. Chester jerked the gown out of Anna's hands. One of those active,
restless women, who cannot bear to be still while anything is done for
them, was she; and began to put it on herself, grumbling all the
while.
"Nothing in the world ever happened so contrary. Of all things, I
wanted, if these Thornycrofts did come over, to keep them from Lady
Ellis. Once let her get an inkling of their business, and she'd be off
the next day. And there they are, shut up with her. I dare say she
knows it all by now."
"Oh, mamma, it is not likely Mr. Thornycroft would speak of it to
her."
"Indeed! That's your opinion, is it? Give me the hair-brush."
She brushed away at her hair, Anna standing meekly by with a clean cap
ready to put on. Mrs. Chester continued her catalogue of grievances.
"It is the worst day they could have come. All things are at sixes and
sevens on a Saturday. The children are dirty, and the plate's dirty,
and the servants are dirty. They must have luncheon, I suppose--or
dinner, for that's what it will be to them, coming this long drive.
Mr. Thornycroft can possess no sense to take me by storm in this
manner. Anna, I hope you did not proclaim to them that you were a
daughter of the house," she added, the thought suddenly striking her.
Anna's face flushed. She had spoken of Mrs. Chester as "mamma," and
when she went in Lady Ellis had said, "This is Miss Chester." Under
the stern gaze now bent upon her, poor Anna felt as if she had
committed some not-to-be-atoned-for crime.
"In that wretched frock of yours! You have not the least sense of
shame in you, Anna. Over and over again I have said you were born to
disgrace me. Why could you not have passed yourself off for an upper
maid or nursery governess, or something of that sort? Or else kept out
of the way altogether."
It never struck Anna Chester that the reproach was unmerited; it did
not occur to her to petition for a better frock, since that one was so
shabby. She had a better, kept for Sundays and rare holidays; to put
it on on a week-day, unless commanded to do so, would have been an
astounding inroad on the order of things. Reared to self-sacrifice and
privation, that sacrifice and privation that a poor clergyman--a good,
loving, but needy gentleman, must practise who has the care of those
poorer than himself--Anna Chester had lived but to love and obey. When
her father gained his living (that looked so wealthy in prospect), and
the new wife--this present Mrs. Chester, now bending her eyes
condemningly upon her--came home close upon it, Anna's habit of
submission was but slightly changed. Formerly she had yielded wholly
to her father in her intense respect and love; now she, had to yield
to her stepmother in exacted, unquestioning obedience. She never
thought of repining or rebelling. Brought up to think herself of no
earthly consequence, as one whose sole mission in life it was to be
useful to others, doing all she could for every one and ignoring self,
it may be questioned if any young girl's spirit had ever been brought
to the same state of perfect discipline. Never in her whole life had
Anna rebelled at a request or resisted a command; to be told to do a
thing was to obey. But for her naturally sweet temper, her utter want
of selfishness, and the humble estimation imparted to her of herself,
this could hardly have been. She stood there now, listening
repentantly to the reproaches, the disparaging words of her second
mother, and accepted them as her right. That lady, a very pharisee in
her own opinion, gave a finishing twitch to her widow's cap, to her
collar, to the "weepers" on her wrists, took the broad hem-stitched
handkerchief that Anna held in readiness for her, and turned to leave
the room.
"What shall I do now, mamma?" came the meek question.
"Do?--ay to be sure," continued Mrs. Chester, recalled by the words;
"why, you must go to the kitchen and see what sort of a lunch can be
sent up. I had ordered the cold fowl and ham with salad, and the cold
mutton for you and the children. The mutton must be hashed now; very
nicely, mind; you can cut it up yourself: and the veal cutlet that was
intended in for dinner, must be dressed with herbs, tell Nanny; and
some young potatoes. The tart can come in and the cream, and--and that
will do. I shall make it our dinner, apologizing privately to Lady
Ellis for the early hour, and call it luncheon to the Thornycrofts."
"Are the children to be at table?"
"Certainly not. What are you thinking of? You must keep them with you.
The miserable thing is that Elizabeth went back with the Lakes this
morning; she's so respectable a servant to be seen behind one's chair
in waiting. Tell Dinah to put on her merino gown, and make herself
tidy."
Away went Mrs. Chester to the drawing-room, the cares of the many
orders and contrivances on her shoulders, and away went Anna to the
kitchen to see to the execution of them, to aid in their preparation,
to keep in quietness by her side (an exceedingly difficult task) the
noisy children. Little did Mr. Thornycroft, bowing to the comely and
well-dressed widow lady who introduced herself as Mrs. Chester, think
of the trouble the advent of himself and his daughter was causing.
Mrs. Chester had accused him of possessing no sense. He possessed
plenty, and also tact. As Mrs. Chester remained silent as to the
object of his visit, ignoring it apparently altogether; rather
boasting of how glad she was to make their acquaintance, to see them
there for a day's change; he said nothing of it either. Mrs. Chester
was on thorns though all the while, and talked rather at random. Lady
Ellis was content to sit displaying her charms, and to put in a word
or a smile here and there. Mr. Thornycroft said something about going
to the hotel for luncheon.
"Oh, but surely you will remain and take luncheon with me?" said Mrs.
Chester, with as much _empressement_ as though she had a larder full
of good things to send up.
"Would you prefer that we should do so?" asked Mr. Thornycroft.
He put the question quite simply. Luncheon and other meals were
provided for so munificently in his own house, it did not occur to him
that his remaining could cause embarrassment in Mrs. Chester's. That
lady answered that it would give her great pain if they departed, and
Mary Anne Thornycroft took off her hat. Turning to place it on a
side-table, she saw a very fine piece of coral there, shaped something
like a basket.
"Oh, papa, look at this!" she exclaimed. "It must be the fellow-piece
to the one at Mrs. Connaught's."
"What Connaughts are those?" asked Lady Ellis, briskly. "I knew a Mrs.
Connaught once."
This Mrs. Connaught, who had lived about two years at Coastdown,
proved to be the same. Lady Ellis noted down the address in her pocket
case.
Later, when all had dispersed, Mrs. Chester seized on her opportunity.
"I think we can have a few minutes alone now, Mr. Thornycroft, if you
wish to speak to me. May I flatter myself that your visit today is to
make arrangements for placing your daughter under my charge?"
"Madam, I came today not to make arrangements,--that would be
premature,--but to ascertain if possible whether such arrangements
would be suitable," he replied in his open manner. "I do wish very
much to find an eligible home for my daughter, where she may complete
her education and be happy. Captain and Mrs. Copp,--some connexion of
yours, I believe?"
"Of my late husband's," interposed Mrs. Chester, quickly, as though
not willing to claim connexion with Captain and Mrs. Copp; "that is,
of his first wife's. I don't know them at all."
"Ah, indeed; very worthy people they are. Well, madam, Mrs. Copp spoke
to me of you; The widow, she said, of the Reverend James Chester, of
Guild. I had some slight knowledge of him in early days. You were
intending to take some pupils on the plan of a private family, Mrs.
Copp said, and she thought it might suit Miss Thornycroft."
"Yes," replied Mrs. Chester, scarcely knowing what to reply in her
uncertainty of plans, "I did think of it."
"And do you wish still to carry it out?"
"Yes, oh yes; if I could get the pupils."
"I had better tell you what I require for my daughter," observed Mr.
Thornycroft. "She must be in a family where the habits and
arrangements are essentially good; not the scanty, coarse provision
generally pertaining to a school. She must be well waited on, well
fed, well treated; her companions must be the daughters of gentlemen;
her education must be continued on the same liberal scale as that on
which it has been hitherto conducted. And I should wish her to get
from the lady principal that good, conscientious, careful training
that is rarely given except by a mother."
"Is she well advanced for her age? In music, for instance?" asked Mrs.
Chester, after a pause.
"Very well. She plays the harp and piano, sings, and has begun
harmony. German and French she speaks well; but, all that you can
inquire into yourself. In saying that her education must be liberal,
the word is sufficiently comprehensive."
"And for these advantages what sum would you be prepared to pay?"
"Whatever was asked me, madam, in reason--in reason, of course. I am
at my ease in the world in regard to money, and shall certainly not
spare it on my only daughter."
Mrs. Chester's mouth watered. She was sure she had heard of such a
thing as _three_ hundred a year being asked in a case like this, and
given. Time enough for terms, though, yet.
"Miss Thornycroft has hitherto been educated at home, I believe?"
"She has; but she is getting beyond the control of her governess, Miss
Derode, and I think she would be better at school for the next year or
two. A good soul, poor Miss Derode, as ever lived, and thoroughly
accomplished; but Mary Anne has begun to laugh at her instead of
obeying her. That won't do, you know."
Mrs. Chester sat twirling the crape of her dress between her fingers
in thought. Presently she looked at Mr. Thornycroft.
"Have you thought of any sum that might be suitable--for the
advantages you require?"
"I should think about two hundred a year. I would give that."
"Very fair," murmured Mrs. Chester. "Of course, any little extras--but
that can be left for the present. I should like much to take her."
"For this sum I should expect commensurate advantages," continued Mr.
Thornycroft, in his straightforward, candid way. "At present I do not
see--you will forgive me, madam--that you are at all prepared for such
a pupil. You have no pupils, I think?"
"Not yet."
"And I should wish my daughter to have companions, young ladies of her
own age--just three or four, to reconcile her to being away from home,
the notion which she does not at all relish. A resident governess
would also be essential--unless indeed the lady superintendent devoted
her whole time to them."
"Yes, yes; a resident governess, of course," mechanically answered
Mrs. Chester.
What more might have been said was arrested by the entrance of the
youngest child, his pinafore and mouth smeared with treacle.
Clamouring for bread and treacle, Anna had given him a slice to keep
him quiet. In the midst of eating it he had broken away, ungrateful
boy, and rushed into the presence of Mrs. Chester. Dinah, who had not
got on her merino gown yet, or made herself tidy, came and carried
him, kicking, away again. Mrs. Chester was depressed by the accident,
and sat subdued.
"I think, madam, that if you carry your intention out, the better way
will be for you to write to me as soon as you are ready to receive
pupils," said Mr. Thornycroft. "I will then consider the matter
further, and decide whether or not to send you my daughter. There is
no great hurry; Miss Derode has not left us."
"You will not promise her to me?"
"I cannot do that, Mrs. Chester," was the answer, given with prompt
decision. "Until I see that arrangements would be suitable, that the
home would be in all respects desirable, I can say no more."
Mrs. Chester sighed inwardly, and felt from that moment she must
resign hope--Miss Thornycroft and her liberal pay would not be for
her. But she suffered nothing of this to appear, some latent
aspiration might be lingering yet, and she rose up gaily and shook Mr.
Thornycroft's hand in a warmth of satisfaction, and said the matter,
left so, was all that was to be desired.
And then they took the luncheon--Mrs. Chester, Lady Ellis, Mr. and
Miss Thornycroft. Some fruit was set out on the lawn afterwards, and
coffee was to follow. Lady Ellis did the honours of the garden to Mr.
Thornycroft, nothing loth; walking up this path with him, down that;
halting to sit on this rustic bench, entering that shady bower. A very
charming woman, thought Justice Thornycroft.
Miss Thornycroft was left to the companionship of Mrs. Chester. And
that young lady, with the freedom she was accustomed to make known her
wishes at home, asked that Anna Chester might join them.
"I promised Mrs. Copp to take word back of her welfare, and what sort
of a girl she was," said Mary Anne. "How can I do so unless I see
her?"
With outward alacrity and inward wrath, Mrs. Chester disappeared for a
moment, and sent a private telegram to Anna that she was to dress
herself and come out. In five minutes the girl was with them. She came
with the coffee. Her black silk dress (made out of one of Mrs.
Chester's old ones) was pretty; her face was flushed with its refined,
delicate colour, her brown eyes sparkled with their soft brilliancy,
her chestnut hair was smooth and pretty. Essentially a lady was Anna
now. Justice Thornycroft, coming up then for the coffee with Lady
Ellis, took her hands in his and held her before him.
"My dear, I can trace in you a great likeness to your father. It is
just the same refined, patient face."
Ere the words were well spoken, the brown eyes were wet, the sweet
lips were quivering. The loss of her father, so intensely loved, had
been Anna's great grief in life. A chance reminiscence, such as this,
was more than she could bear.
"Did you know papa, sir?" she asked, looking bravely up through the
tears.
"I knew a little of him many years ago, and I once or twice saw your
mother. You must come and pay us a visit at Coastdown."
A glad light in the gentle face.
"I should like it very much, sir. Mrs. Copp has already invited me to
go to them; but I cannot be spared."
"You must be spared; I should like you to come," spoke Mary Anne,
imperiously, with the tone of one who is not accustomed to have her
slightest wish disputed. But the waiting coffee and Mrs. Chester
turned off the subject.
The clock was striking five when the punctual groom appeared with the
carriage. Down it came with grand commotion, its fine horses fresh
after their rest, and stopped at the gate. The whole party escorted
Mr. and Miss Thornycroft to it: Mrs. Chester and Anna, the children,
tidy now and on tolerable behaviour, Lady Ellis and her fascination.
Promises of future friendly intercourse were exchanged. Mr.
Thornycroft gave a positive undertaking to drive over again and spend
another day, and they took their places in the carriage. Away went the
horses in a canter, rather restive; the justice, restraining them, had
enough to do to raise his hat in farewell salutation; the groom had a
run ere he could gain his seat behind. And they started on their long
drive of three-and-twenty miles.
At the same moment, appearing from an opposite quarter, came Mr. and
Mrs. Lake and Elizabeth on their return from Katterley. They were near
enough to see the carriage go swiftly off, but not to distinguish its
inmates. Mrs. Chester and the rest waited for them at the gate.
"Have you had visitors, Penelope?" asked Mr. Lake.
"Yes. And very cross and contrary I felt it that you were not here,"
continued Mrs. Chester, who was proud of her good-looking brother. "It
is Mr. Thornycroft and his daughter--they have been with us ever since
twelve o'clock. To think that you were away! I am sure Clara would
have liked Miss Thornycroft."
To think that they were away!--that the two ladies spoken of did not
meet! One of them at least would deem it a chance missed, a singular
fact, in the years to come.
CHAPTER VII.
Going Fishing.
A chilly evening. The hot days of August have passed away; this is
October, and the night is turning out raw and misty. But in Mrs.
Chester's house warmth and light reign, at least in the inhabited
rooms of it.
In one of them, a moderate-sized, comfortable apartment, whose windows
opened to the ground, the large fire had burned down to a red glow,
after rendering the atmosphere unpleasantly warm; and a lady, seated
in a lounging chair, had pushed it quite back, so that she was in the
shade both from the light and the fire. A look of perplexity, of care,
sat on her face, young and lovely though it was; even in her hands, as
they lay listless on her lap, there was an air of abandonment. But
that the room was growing dusk and dim in the autumn twilight, that
sadness might not have been suffered to show itself, although she was
alone.
It was Clara Lake. Her thoughts were buried in a painful
retrospect--the retrospect of only the two past months. They had
brought grief to her: as the summer did to the unhappy girl, told of
in that beautiful ballad Anna Chester sometimes sung, "The Banks of
Allan Water."
Had any one warned Clara Lake the previous August, when she came to
Mrs. Chester's for a two days' visit, that the sojourn would not be
one of days but months, she had simply disbelieved it. Even when the
term was extended to a proposed fortnight--a fortnight in all--she
would have laughed at the idea of staying longer. But she had stayed.
She was here still. Nevertheless, things had so turned out; all easily
and naturally, as it seemed, to look back upon. As it seemed to her
now, sitting in her chair, and tracing the course of past events.
The alteration in their house at Katterley, as proposed by Mr. Lake,
and which was to be completed in ten days or a fortnight, was begun in
due course--the throwing out of the dining-room by means of a bay
window. He and his wife went over one day to see the progress of the
work. It was then suggested--whether by the builder, by her husband,
by herself, or by all three jointly, Clara could not to this hour
recollect--that, to make a complete job of it, the window in the
chamber above should also be thrown out. The additional expense would
be comparatively little, the improvement great; and it was agreed to
on the spot. Orders were also given for the drawing-room and their own
chamber to be painted, repapered, and decorated.
"Won't it take a long time?" Clara suddenly asked.
"About a month, if they work well; certainly not more," replied Mr.
Lake.
He must have known little of workmen, to speak so confidently.
Builders, carpenters, painters, decorators, are not famous for working
themselves thin through over-hurry. The popular saying, "If once you
get them into your house, you never get them out," seemed to be
exemplified in this one instance. Here was October come in, and
Katterley Lodge was as far off being ready for reception as ever.
It would have been a slight grievance, the detention, to Mr. and Mrs.
Lake--not any, in fact, to him--for Mrs. Chester's house was an
agreeable one, and they had no home ties; but Lady Ellis was making
the stay insupportable to Mr. Lake's wife.
Tolerably young, showy, very handsome according to the taste of many,
exacting attention, living but in admiration, and not scrupulous how
she obtained it provided she got it, Lady Ellis had begun to cast her
charming toils on the careless and attractive Robert Lake in the very
first hour of their meeting. Not to eat him up; not intending
certainly to be eaten herself; only to be her temporary slave, pour
faire passer le temps. In that dull country house, where there was no
noise or excitement but what arose from its children, Lady Ellis
wanted something to make the time pass.
Mr. Lake was perfectly ready to meet her halfway. One of those men
who, wife or no wife, consider a flirtation with a pretty woman--and
with one not pretty, for the matter of that--a legitimate occupation
in their idle life, he responded to her advances gallantly. Neither of
them had any idea of plunging into shoals and quicksands; let us so
far give both their due. A rather impressive clasp of the hand; a
prolonged walk in the glowing beauty of the summer's day; an
interchange of confidential talk, meaning nothing--that was the worst,
thought of by either. But then, you see, the mischief is, that when
once these things are fairly embarked in, the course entered upon and
its midway post reached, down you glide, swimmingly, unwittingly; and
it is an exceedingly difficult matter to turn back. Good chance (to
call it so here), generally sends the opportunity, but it is not
always seized upon.
The flirtation began. There were walks in the morning sun, shady
garden chairs for rest at noontide, lingerings in the open air by
twilight, that grateful hour after a sultry day. There were meetings
indoors, meetings out; singing, talking, netting, idling. Mr. Lake
went fishing, his favourite pastime just now, and my Lady Ellis would
carry his luncheon to him; or stroll down later, wait until the day's
sport was at an end, and stroll home with him. One or other of the
children was often with her, serving to satisfy the requisites of
propriety, had friends been difficult.
None were so. For a whole month this agreeable life went on, and
nobody gave it a care or a thought. Certainly Clara did not. She was
accustomed to see her husband's light admiration given to others;
never yet had a suspicion crossed her mind that he had more than
admiration to give. That his love was exclusively hers, to be hers for
ever, she believed in as fully as she believed in heaven.
Well, the month passed, August; and September was entered upon. The
flirtation (to call it so for want of a better word), had grown pretty
deep. The morning walks were frequent; the noontide restings were
confidential, the twilight lingerings were prolonged to starlight. The
songs became duets, the conversation whispers; the netting was as
often in his hands as hers, and the silk purse did not progress. Mr.
Lake drove Lady Ellis out in the stylish little open carriage,
conveniently made for two persons and no more, that he was fond of
hiring at Guild. One day Fanny Chester went with them; my lady's dress
got crushed, and of course the inconvenience could not be allowed to
occur again. Twice a week she rode with him, requiring very much of
his care in the open country, for she said she was a timid horsewoman.
In short, they had plunged into a whirligig round of days that was
highly agreeable to the two concerned.
Sharp-eyed Mrs. Chester--nearly as sharp as Lady Ellis herself, but
more honest--saw quite well what was going on. "Don't you go and make
a fool of yourself with that woman, Robert!" she said to him one day,
which sent Mr. Lake into a fit of laughter. He thought himself just
the last man to do it. And on went the time again.
Imperceptibly--she could not remember how or when it first arose--a
shade of annoyance, of vexation, stole upon Mrs. Lake. Her husband was
always with Lady Ellis; except at meals and at night, he was never
with her; and she began to think it was not quite right that it should
be so. Crafty Mrs. Chester--honest enough in the main, but treacherous
in this one matter--was on thorns lest Clara should take alarm and
cause an outbreak; which would not have done at all. She did what she
could to keep alarm off, and would have to reconcile it to her
conscience in later days. Mr. and Mrs. Lake paid her well, and that
was also a consideration.
"Clara, dear, it is so good of your husband to help me," she would
say, or words similar. "He has never been a true brother to me until
now. Were it not for him I am sure Lady Ellis would die of ennui in
this place. He keeps her amused for me, doing what he can to make her
days pass pleasantly. I shall be ever thankful to him."
Once, and once only, Clara went to the fishing stream after them. It
was a mile and a half away, the one they had gone fishing in that day.
They! Lady Ellis had a costly little rod now, bought for her by Mr.
Lake, and went with him. Clara, having nothing better to do in the
afternoon, uneasily conscious of the advent of incipient jealousy
arising in her heart, thought she would join the party. Her husband
had never asked her to do so at any time; upon her hinting that she
should like to fish too, he had stopped the idea at once: "No, she
would be too fatigued." Mrs. Lake, it was true, was not strong; heat
and fatigue knocked her up. Mrs. Chester had been crafty from the
first. One day in the early stage of the affair, seeing her husband
and Lady Ellis sitting together in the shade at noontide, Clara was
innocently stepping out at the window to sit too, when Mrs. Chester
interposed to prevent it. "Good gracious, Clara! don't go stealing out
like that. They may think you want to hear what they are saying--out
of jealousy." And the word "jealousy" only caused an amusing laugh to
Clara Lake then; but she remained indoors. Well, on this afternoon,
she started for the stream, taking Master James Chester in her hand
Master James abandoned her _en route_, going off on his own devices,
and she was alone when she reached them. A deliciously shady place she
found it; the chance passers-by beyond the trees at the back few and
far between. Both were sitting on the bank, attending to their lines,
which were deep in the water. They looked round with surprise, and
Lady Ellis was the first to speak.
"Have you come to look after us, Mrs. Lake?"
Innocent words, sufficiently courteous in themselves, but not in the
tone with which they were spoken. There was a mocking undercurrent in
it, implying much; at least, Clara fancied so, and it brought the red
flush of shame to her cheeks. Open, candid, ultra-refined herself, to
spy upon others would have been against her very nature. It seemed to
her that in that light she was looked upon, as a spy, and inwardly
resolved not to intrude again.
James Chester made his appearance in the course of time, and Clara set
off home with him. They asked her to stay until the sport was at an
end; her husband pressed it; but she could not get over that tone, and
said she would walk very quietly on, that they might overtake her.
Master James went off as before, and Clara thought of the interview.
"There was no harm; there can be none; they were only fishing," she
murmured to herself. "What a stupid thing I was!"
"Where's Jemmy?" asked Mrs. Chester, coming forth to meet her.
"I'm sure I can't tell. He ran away from me both in going and
returning. It was not my fault. He does not mind anybody a bit, you
know."
"Why did you not wait to come home with Robert and Lady Ellis?"
"I don't know. I wanted to get back, for one thing; I was tired. And I
don't much think Lady Ellis liked my going."
"My dear Clara, you must not take up vague fancies," spoke Mrs.
Chester, after a pause. "One would think you were growing jealous, as
the boys and girls do. Nothing can be in worse taste for a lady, even
when there may be apparent grounds for it. In this case the very
thought would be absurd; Lady Ellis is ten years older than your
husband."
And so, what with one thing and another, Clara was subdued to passive
quietness, and Mr. Lake and Lady Ellis had it all their own way. But
her suspicions that they were growing rather too fond of each other's
company had been aroused, and she naturally, perhaps unconsciously,
watched, not in the unfounded fancy of an angry woman, a jealous wife,
but in the sick fear of a loving one. She saw the flirtation (again I
must apologize for the name) grow into sentiment, if not to passion;
she saw it lapse into concealment--which is a very bad sign. And now
that October had come in and was passing, Clara Lake's whole inward
life was one scene of pain, of conflict, of wild jealousy preying upon
her very heartstrings. She had loved her husband with all the fervour
of a deeply imaginative nature; had believed in him with the perfect
trustingness of an innocent-hearted, honest English girl.
She sat in her chair there in the drawing-room, drawn away from the
fire's heat, her eyes fixed on vacancy, her pretty hands lying weary.
What was that heat compared to the heat that raged within, the mind's
fever?
"If it could but end!" she murmured to herself; "if we could but go
back to our home at Katterley!"
Strange to say--and yet perhaps not strange, for the natural working
out of a course of events is often hidden to the chief actor in
it--the dream and its superstitious dread had faded away from Clara's
memory. Of course she had not forgotten the fact; whenever she thought
of it, as she did at odd times, its features presented themselves to
her as vividly as ever. But the dread of it was gone. When day
succeeded day, week succeeded week, bringing no appearance of any
tragic end for her, accident or else, that could put her into a
hearse, the foreboding fear quite subsided. Besides, Clara Lake looked
upon the accident to the railway-train that Sunday night as the one
that would have killed her had she only been in it. So the dream and
its superstition had become as a thing of the past.
Lonely, dispirited, unusually low, felt she this afternoon. Mr. Lake
had gone over in the morning to Katterley to see how their house was
progressing, and she began to wonder that he was not back. They had
taken dinner early that day, and Lady Ellis had disappeared after it.
When Mr. Lake was away she would invariably go up to her room after
dinner, saying she had letters to write. Shrewd Fanny Chester, taking
after her quick mother, said my lady went up to get a nap, not to
write. Mrs. Chester was in the nursery, where she had a dressmaker at
work, making clothes for her children; Anna was helping; and Clara was
alone.
It may as well be mentioned that the mystery attaching to the cause of
the railway accident had not been solved yet. The coroner and jury had
met regularly once a fortnight since, and as regularly adjourned the
inquest. In the teeth of Colonel West's most positive testimony, it
was impossible to bring in a verdict against Cooper, the driver; in
the teeth of Oliver Jupp's, it was equally impossible to exonerate
him. No other witnesses, save the parties interested, appeared to have
seen the lights that night. The public were fairly nonplussed, the
coroner and jury sick to death of the affair. The young person now
working for Mrs. Chester was Cooper's sister.
The red embers were fading down nearly to blackness, when Fanny
Chester came bursting into the room to Clara in her rather boisterous
manner. Clara aroused herself, glad perhaps of the interruption to her
thoughts.
"Is it you, Fanny? Where are they all, dear?"
"Mamma's at work in the nursery. She's running the seams, and showing
Miss Cooper how she wants the bodies cut. Anna's there too. Have you
seen Uncle Robert?"
"Uncle Robert is not back yet, Fanny."
"Yes, he is," replied the young lady, who at all times was fond of her
own opinion.
"You are mistaken," said Clara. "He would have come in to me the first
thing."
"But I saw him. I saw him in the garden ever so long ago. Lady Ellis
was with him. They were at the back there, walking towards the
shrubbery."
Indisputable testimony; and Clara Lake could have bitten her tongue
for saying "He would have come to me the first thing," although her
audience consisted only of a child. Mr. Lake was to have brought her
some book from home that he had forgotten the previous time; she was
ardently longing for it, and thought he would at least have come
straight to her and delivered it.
"Will you please reach me one of those old newspapers up there,"
proceeded Fanny. "Mamma sent me for it. She wants to cut a pattern."
Giving the child the newspaper she asked for, Mrs. Lake shut the door
after her and drew to the window, her heart beating rebelliously. "So
he was back ever so long ago, and solacing himself with the sweet
companionship of Lady Ellis." As she stood there, looking out on the
darkening gloom--fit type of the gloom within--Clara asked herself the
serious question, Was this constant seeking of each other's society
but the result of accident; of a nonsensical liking which meant really
nothing, and would pass away; or was it that they were really in love
with each other, and _she_ losing her place in her husband's heart?
An impulse--a wild impulse--which she could not restrain, and perhaps
did not try to, led her to open the glass doors and step out: some
vague feeling in her unhappy mind, making itself heard amidst the
inward tumult of wishing to see with her own eyes whether the child's
information was true. It might _not_ have been her husband; it might
have been the curate, or Oliver Jupp, or that big Mr. Winterton, all
of whom were fond of coming and of walking with Lady Ellis when they
got the chance; and she would go and see. Pretty sophist! Poor Clara
knew in her inmost heart that it was Robert Lake, and no other:
instinct told her so. Had she given herself a moment's time for
reflection, she would probably not have gone. To an honourable
nature--and Clara Lake's was essentially such--the very idea of
looking after even a recreant husband is abhorrent. But jealousy is
the strongest passion that can assail the human heart, whether of man
or woman. Under its influence we do not stop to raise questions of
expediency.
The raw fog pervading the air struck upon her with a chill as she came
out of the heated room. She had nothing on but a thin muslin body, and
shivered quite unconsciously. What cared she for the cold or the heat?
Had she been plunged into a bath of ice she would not have felt it
then. On she went, sweeping round the lawn in the dusky twilight; for
it was not dark yet--keeping close to the trees, that their friendly
shade might shelter her from chance eyes. Fanny Chester's words,
"Going towards the shrubbery," serving for her guide unconsciously,
she made for the same place.
Well, what did she find or see? Nothing very dreadful, taking it in
the abstract; but quite enough to fan the jealous indignation of a
wife, especially of one who _loves_ her husband.
The shrubbery appeared to be empty; and Clara had, gone half way down
it, past one of its cross openings, when, from that very opening,
sounds of voices and footsteps advancing struck upon her ear. Retreat
was not expedient: they might see her pass; and she darted into a deep
alcove the shrubs had been trained to make, before which ran a bench.
Cowering almost into the very laurels, she stood there in sick fear.
Never had she intended to get so near, and almost wished for the earth
to open and bury her alive rather than she should be seen. Her heart
beating with a wild shame, as if she had been caught in some great
crime, there she had to stay.
On they came in their supreme unconsciousness, turning into the
shrubbery, and alas! towards the verdant alcove. Clara's eyes were
strained to look, and her poor breath came in gasps.
They were arm-in-arm; and Mr. Lake held one of my lady's hands,
lightly toying with its fingers. He was speaking in low, tender
tones--the same tones which had been given to _her_ before their
marriage, and had won her heart for ever. What he was saying she could
not in her agitation tell, but as they were passing her, going from
the house, you understand, not to it, Lady Ellis spoke.
"Robert, it is getting dark and cold."
Robert! Had she known his wife was listening! It might have made no
difference.
"The dark will not hurt you," he said, louder. "You are with me."
"But it is damp also. Indeed, since I returned from India, I feel both
the damp and cold very much."
She spoke in a timid, gentle tone: as different from her natural
tones, as different from those she used to any _but_ him, as can well
be imagined. That she had set herself out to gain his love seemed a
sure fact. How far Lady Ellis contemplated going, or Mr. Lake either,
and what they may have anticipated would be the final upshot, how or
where it was to end, was best known to themselves. Let it lie with
them.
"There's a shawl of yours, I think, Angeline, in the summer-house. Sit
you there while I get it."
He left her on the bench, behind which his wife was standing: they
touched each other within an inch or two. Clara drew in her breath,
and wished the earth _would_ open. Lady Ellis began a scrap of a song,
as if she did not like being alone in the darkness. Her voice, whether
in singing or speaking, was loud and shrill, though she modified it
for Mr. Lake. An antediluvian sort of song: goodness knows where she
could have picked it up. Perhaps the stars, beginning to twinkle
above, suggested its recollection to her.
"As many bright stars as appeared in the sky,
As many young lovers were caught by my eye;
And I was a beauty then, oh then,
And I was a beauty then.
"But now that I'm married, good what, good what!
I'm tied to a proud and fantastical fop,
Who follows another and cares for me not.
"But when I'm a widow I'll live at my ease,
I'll go all about, and I'll do as I please,
And take care how I marry again, again;
And take care how I marry again."
She had time to sing the three stanzas through, repeating the last
line of the first and third verses as a refrain.
Mr. Lake came back swinging the shawl on his arm--a warm grey woollen
one. "All right at last, Angeline. I could not find it, and had to
strike a fusee for a light. It had slipped behind the seat. I began to
think you must have carried it away today."
"I did not know it was there," she answered.
"Don't you remember throwing it off last evening when we were sitting
there, saying you felt hot? Now be quiet: I'll wrap you up myself.
Have you any pins?"
She had risen, and he put the shawl on her head and shoulders; then
turned her round and pinned it under her chin, so that only her face
was visible. With such care!--oh, with such care!
"You are taking as much trouble as though I were going to stay out for
an hour!"
"I wish we were."
"Do you? What would your wife say?"
"Nothing. And if she did--what then? There, you can't feel the cold
now."
"No; I don't think I can."
"But what am I to have for my pains?"
She made no answer. In truth, he did not wait for it. Bending his own
face on the one he held up, he left a kiss and a loving word upon it:
"My dearest!" A long and passionate kiss, as it sounded in his wife's
ear.
Lady Ellis, perhaps not prepared for so demonstrative a proceeding,
spoke a rebuke. He only laughed. They moved away; he retaining his arm
around her for a lingering moment, as though to keep the shawl in its
place; and their voices were dropped again to a soft sweet whisper,
that scarcely disturbed the stillness of the murky autumn night.
Very different from the tone of that wail--had any been near to note
it--when Clara Lake left her hiding-place; a low wail, as of a
breaking heart, that came forth and mingled with the inclement evening
air.
Some writer has remarked--and I believe it was Bulwer Lytton, in his
"Student"--that to the vulgar there is but one infidelity in love. It
is perfectly true; but I think the word "vulgar" is there misplaced,
unless we may apply it to all, whether inmates of the palace
or the cottage, whose temperament is not of the ultra-refined.
_Ultra_-refined, mind! they of the sensitive, proud, impassioned
nature, whose inward life, its thoughts, its workings, can never be
betrayed to the world, any more than they themselves can be understood
by it. Alas for them! They are hardly fit to dwell on this earth, to
do battle with its sins and its cares; for their spirit is more
exalted than is well: it may be said, more etherealized. The gold too
highly refined, remember, is not adapted for general use. That the
broad, vulgar idea conveyed by the word infidelity, is not their
infidelity, is very certain. It is the unfaithfulness of the spirit,
the wandering of the heart's truth to another, that constitutes
infidelity for them; and where such comes, it shatters the heart's
life as effectually as a blast of lightning shatters the tree it falls
on. _This_ was the infidelity that wrought the misery of Clara Lake:
that other infidelity, whether it was or was not to have place in the
future, she barely glanced at. Her husband's love had left her: it was
given to another; and what mattered aught else? The world had closed to
her; never again could she have, as it seemed, any place in it.
Henceforth life would be a mockery.
She returned shivering to the house--not apparently with the cold from
without, but from the chill within--entering by the glass doors. The
fire was nearly out; it wanted stirring and replenishing. She never
saw it, never noticed it; but crept upstairs to her own room to hide
herself. We cannot follow her; for you may not doubt that the quarter
of an hour she stopped in it she had _need_ to be alone, away from the
wondering eyes of men.
Only a quarter of an hour. Clara Lake was not one of your loud women,
who like their wrongs to be proclaimed to the world, and punished
accordingly. In her sensitive reticence, she dreaded their betrayal
more than any earthly thing. So she rose from her knees, and lifted
her head from the chair, where it had lain in utter abandonment of
spirit, and smoothed her hair, and went out of her room again to
disarm suspicion, and was her calm self once more. At that same
moment, though she knew it not, Mr. Lake and Lady Ellis were slowly
strolling across the grass to enter by the same glass doors, their
promenade, which they had been taking up and down the broad walk since
quitting the shrubbery, having come to a decorous end.
CHAPTER VIII.
Catching a Chill.
The warm light from the open nursery door flashed across Clara Lake's
path in the corridor, and she went in. Mrs. Chester was running some
slate-coloured breadths together, the lining for a black frock for
Fanny. Miss Cooper sat at the table equally busy. She was a steady,
industrious young woman, as well-conducted as her brother, the
unfortunate engine-driver; and many ladies employed her at their
houses by day.
"Is it you, Clara?" cried Mrs. Chester, looking up. "I'm coming down.
I suppose you are all wondering what has become of me? Is tea on the
table?"
"I--I don't know; I have been in my room," replied Mrs. Lake, taking a
low chair near the fire.
Anna, with her quick ear of discernment--at work apart from the rest,
with very little benefit of the candles' light--turned round and
looked at Clara, as if something in the tone were unnatural;
disguised. But she said nothing. Clara seemed absorbed in the fire.
Light, quick steps were heard on the stairs, and Robert Lake dashed
in, a gay smile on his face. "Pretty housekeepers you are! The
drawing-room fire's gone out."
"The fire gone out!" repeated Mrs. Chester, in consternation. "What
will Lady Ellis say? Clara, dear, what could you have been thinking
of? You should have rung for coals."
"It was a good fire when I left it," murmured Clara, believing she
spoke in accordance with the truth.
"And the fire was all red coals, and the room as hot as could be when
I went in for that newspaper," put in Fanny Chester.
"Run, Fanny, and tell them to make up the fire again, and to put in
plenty of sticks," said Mrs. Chester. "Has Lady Ellis not been sitting
with you this afternoon, Clara?"
"In her own room, no doubt, writing letters. I hope she is there
still. So you have got back, Robert," Mrs. Chester added, turning to
her brother.
"Safe and sound," was Mr. Lake's response, as he stood surveying the
table and the work going on. "What are you so busy over, all of you?"
Mrs. Chester, bending her eyes and fingers on a complicated join,
inserted from consideration of economy, did not take the trouble to
answer. Mr. Lake went round to his wife.
"How are you by this time, Clary?" he lightly said; as, standing
between her and the table, he bent down to the low chair where she
sat, and kissed her forehead.
It was a cold kiss; a careless matter-of-fact sort of kiss à la
matrimony. She made no response in words, or else; but the hot crimson
dyed her cheeks, as she contrasted it with a certain other kiss
bestowed by him on somebody else not long before; _that_ was
passionate enough; rather too much so. Had he noticed, he might have
seen his wife press her hand sharply upon her bosom; as if she might
be trying to hide its tumultuous throbbing.
"And how does the house get on, Robert?" asked Mrs. Chester, lifting
her head to speak.
"Slower than ever. You'll have us here until Christmas, Penelope,
according to the present lookout."
"I hope I shall; although Clara"--turning towards her--"does seem in a
fidget to get back."
Clara seemed in a fidget about nothing, just then; she was sitting
perfectly still, her face and her eyes cast down. Robert Lake ran on,
in his own fashion, turning his attention upon the dressmaker now.
"Working for your life as usual, Miss Cooper! What is that you are
cutting out? A pair of pantaloons for me?"
"It's a pair of sleeves, sir."
"Oh, sleeves; I feared they'd hardly be large enough. By the way, when
is that inquest to be brought to an end?"
"I wish I knew, sir," she answered.
"And nothing has been decided in regard to your brother yet!"
"No, sir. It is very hard."
"It is very strange," returned Mr. Lake--"strange there should be this
contradiction about the lights. Each side is so positive."
"I am quite certain, sir, that Matthew would not say what was untrue,
even to save himself; therefore, when he says it was the green light
up, I know it was the green."
"Precisely the same thing that I tell everybody. I have unlimited
faith in Cooper."
"And there's Colonel West to bear out what he says, you know, sir. The
colonel would not say the green light was up, if it was not."
"No. But then, again, Oliver Jupp and the station people maintain it
was the red," said Mr. Lake, remarking upon the fact that had puzzled
him all along. "For my part, I think there was a little sleight of
hand going on. Some conjurors must have been there in disguise. Now
gentlemen and ladies, walk up; the performance is just going to begin.
The celebrated Signor Confusiani has taken his place, and is entering
on his mysteries. He transforms colours by the help of his magic wand
In looking at the green, you perceive it change to red; in looking at
the red, it at once passes into blue."
They all laughed, except Clara. She sat still as before, her eyes
fixed on the fire.
"You see, sir, the worst of it is that Matthew is kept out of
employment all this time," said Miss Cooper. "They have suspended him.
He and his poor young wife are at their wits' end nearly, over it. Two
months now, and not a shilling coming in."
"Yes, it is very bad," returned Mr. Lake, speaking seriously for once.
"There's a baby too, is there not?"
"Yes, sir. Three weeks old."
"I suppose you give them your earnings."
"I give them what I can, sir; but I have my mother to keep."
"Ah," concluded Mr. Lake, abandoning the subject. "Have you been for a
walk today, Clara?"
"No."
"You ought to take her, Robert; she scarcely ever goes out now. You
might have come back earlier and done it. Lady Ellis did not have a
walk today, failing you. Why did you not come sooner?"
"Couldn't manage it, Mrs. Chester."
"But--when _did_ you come?" suddenly resumed Mrs. Chester, after a
pause of thought. "You must have come back in the afternoon. There's
no train at this hour."
"Oh, they put on a special one for me."
"Don't be stupid," retorted Mrs. Chester. "You must have been back
some time."
"Have it your own way, Penelope, and perhaps you'll live the longer."
"Uncle Robert, you know you were back ever so long ago," interposed
Fanny Chester, who had just come into the room. "You have been staying
in the garden with Lady Ellis."
"What's that?" cried Mr. Lake.
"I saw you. You were both of you going towards the shrubbery."
He caught hold of the little speaker by the waist, and swung her
round. "That's the way you see ghosts, is it, Miss Fanny! Take care
they don't run away with you! How could you see me in the shrubbery,
pray, if I was not there."
"Be quiet, Uncle Robert; put me down. Mamma there's a good fire in the
parlour now, and the tea-tray is carried in. And Miss Cooper, I was to
tell you they are waiting tea for you in the kitchen."
Mrs. Chester, shaking the threads from her black gown, left the room,
Fanny went with her, and Miss Cooper followed. Tea was a thankful boon
to the weary, hard-worked dressmaker. Anna never quitted her work
until the last minute, and sat on, drawing one of the candles a little
nearer to her. Robert Lake began speaking to his wife of the progress
of their house; or rather, the non-progress. Clara--the one dreadful
certainty giving rise to other suspicions--wondered whether he had
bribed the men to retard it. He had not done that, however; he was not
one to commit wrong deliberately.
"Seriously speaking, Clara, I do think we shall not get back before
Christmas."
She had determined upon saying something; what, she hardly knew. But
when she tried to speak, the violent agitation that the effort
brought, impeded all utterance. And perhaps the presence of Anna
Chester acted as a restraint. She glanced up at him and opened her
lips; but no words came; her throat was beating, her breath troubled.
"Clara! you have turned quite white. Are you ill?"
"I--I feel cold," was all she could say.
"It is a cold, nasty night," remarked Mr. Lake, giving no further
thought to the matter, or supposing that there was cause to give it.
"The tea is ready, I think; that will warm you."
He took one of the candles off the table and went to his room to wash
his hands. Anna Chester laid down her work and approached Clara.
"Dear Mrs. Lake, something is troubling you," she said in her gentle
manner, as her sweet eyes glanced deprecatingly at that care-betraying
face. "Can I do anything for you--or get you anything? Shall I bring
you some tea up here?"
"Hush, Anna! No, it is nothing--only that I am cold. Thank you all the
same."
"You are looking so pale. Pale and sad."
"I don't think I have been very well lately, Anna. Let me be quiet, my
dear, for a few minutes, will you? my head aches."
Anna Chester, with the delicacy innate in her, quitted the room,
setting things a little straight on the work-table in passing it. When
Mr. Lake came back, Clara was sitting just as he had left her. Putting
down the candle, he came close up, making some trifling remark.
She would have given the world to be able to say a word to him; to ask
whether she was to be _second_ in his heart; second to that woman; but
she simply dared not. Her agitation would have become unbearable, and
ended in an hysterical scene.
"Are you not coming to tea, Clara?"
"Presently."
He looked at her with a keen eye. She was odd, he thought.
"What's the matter, Clara? You seem dull this evening."
There was no answer. Mrs. Lake had her hand pressed upon her throat
and chest, striving, though he knew it not, to still the agitation
that all but burst its bounds.
"Where is the book?" she presently asked.
"What book?"
"The one you were to bring for me; that you forgot last time."
"Oh, to be sure; here it is," he said, taking it from his coat pocket.
"I did not forget it this time, you see."
"You might have brought it to me when you first got back," she
reproachfully said.
"Well, I have not been back long. You are shivering; what makes you so
cold?"
"Oh, I don't know."
"Perhaps you have been asleep; one does shiver sometimes on waking.
Come along, Clara; tea will do you good."
She rose and followed him down. Mrs. Chester was pouring out the tea,
and Lady Ellis, in her black silk gown with its low body and short
sleeves, and the ruche of white crape, causing her to look girlish,
years younger than she was, sat on the sofa. She had several evening
dresses, but they were all black, and all made in the same simple
style. Sir George had not been dead twelve months yet; but she had
never worn a regular widow's cap--it would have spoilt her hair, she
told them. The pretty white net things she wore in a morning were but
an apology for one. Very fine, very silky and beautiful did her
purple-black hair look that night, and Robert Lake playfully touched
it as he sat down beside her.
The children's meal-table, at which Anna Chester used to preside in a
little room, was done away with, the two boys having gone to school,
so that Anna and Fanny were present as usual this evening. There
was plenty of talking and laughing, and Clara's silence was not
noticed--save perhaps by Anna Chester.
After tea, when Anna and Fanny were gone away again, Mr. Lake and Lady
Ellis began chess: in one way or other they generally monopolized each
other's evenings. Sometimes it would be with music; sometimes at
écarté, which she had taught him; often at chess. The small table was
drawn out, and they sat at it apart. Mrs. Chester was doing some
embroidery-work this evening; Clara sat alone by the fire reading; or
making believe to read.
But when she was unobserved the book dropped on her lap. Nobody was
looking at her. Mrs. Chester's profile was towards her, but she was
fully engrossed with her work; her husband's back was turned. Only
Lady Ellis was in full view, and Clara sat studying her face and the
glances of her large and flashing eyes.
How long silence had reigned, except for the remarks exchanged now and
again between the chess-players, perhaps none of them could have told,
when one of those subtle instincts, alike unaccountable and
unexplainable, caused Mrs. Chester to turn suddenly to Clara Lake.
What she saw made her start.
"Clara! What is the matter?"
Mr. Lake turned quickly round and regarded his wife. The book lay on
her knee, her cheeks were scarlet as with incipient fever, her whole
frame was shaking, her eyes were wild. That she was labouring under
some extraordinary attack of terror appeared evident to all. He rose
and came up.
"You are certainly ill, my dear!"
Ill, agitated, frightened--there could be no question of it. Not at
once did she speak; she was battling with herself for calmness. Mrs.
Chester took her hand Lady Ellis approached with dark and wondering
eyes. Clara put her hands before her own.
"It is a nervous attack," said Mrs. Chester. "Go and get some wine,
Robert, or some brandy."
He was going already, before she told him, and brought back both.
Clara would take neither. Awfully vexed at having caused a scene, the
mortification enabled her to throw off the symptoms of illness, except
the shivering. Lady Ellis, with extreme bad taste, slipped her hand
within Mr. Lake's arm as they stood watching her. He moved forward to
speak, and so dropped it.
"You must have caught cold, I fear, Clara. Had you not better take
something warm and go to bed?"
She lifted her eyes to his, and answered sharply--sharply for her.
"I shall not go to bed. I am well now."
"Colds are sooner caught than got rid of, Clara. If you have take
one--"
"If I have, it will be gone in the morning," came the sharp
interruption. "Pray do not let me disturb your game."
Contriving to repress the shivering by a strong effort of will, she
took up her book again. They returned to the chess-table, Mrs. Chester
went on with her embroidery, and so the night went on: Clara,
outwardly calm, reading sedulously--inwardly shaking as though she had
an ague-fit. Even to herself it was evident that she had caught a
violent cold.
"I shall send you a glass of white-wine whey," spoke Mrs. Chester,
when Clara at length rose to go upstairs, declining to partake of the
refreshments brought in. "And mind you lie in bed in the morning.
There's no mistake about the cold."
"How _could_ she have caught it?" exclaimed Lady Ellis, with a vast
display of sympathy; and Clara bit her tongue to enforce silence, for
she could scarcely forbear telling her. My lady, taking her unawares,
gave her a kiss on the cheek.
"Drink the whey quite hot, my dear Mrs. Lake."
Clara, her mind full of Judas the false and _his_ kiss, went upstairs
alone; she preferred to do so, she told them, and shut-herself in her
own chamber. When Elizabeth appeared with the white-wine whey, and
left it, she noticed that her mistress had not begun to undress.
Neither had she when Mr. Lake came up, nearly an hour afterwards. They
had lingered in the dining-room--he, Mrs. Chester, and Lady Ellis. He
was very much surprised. She sat by the fire, wrapped in a shawl, with
her feet on the fender.
"Why, Clara, I thought you were in bed and asleep!"
There was no answering remark. Mr. Lake, thinking her manner more and
more strange, laid his hand kindly on her shoulder.
"Clary, what ails you to-night?"
She shrank away from his hand, and replied to his question by another.
"Why is it that our house is not ready?"
"That is just what I asked of the workmen today, lazy dogs!"
"We can go back to it as it is. Some of the rooms are habitable. Will
you do so?"
"What in the world for?" he demanded. "We are very comfortable here,
Clara; and, between ourselves, it is a help to Penelope."
"We must go back. I cannot stay."
"But why? Where's the motive?"
She drew her shawl closely round her as if she shivered again, and
spoke the next words with a jerk, for to get them out required an
effort of pain. What it had taken to nerve her to this task so far,
she alone knew.
"What is there between you and Lady Ellis?"
"Between me and Lady Ellis!" echoed Mr. Lake, with all the
carelessness in life. "Nothing at all. What should there be?"
She bent towards him and whispered.
"Which is it--which is it _to be_, I or she?"
"To be--for what?" rejoined Mr. Lake, really at a loss.
"Which of us is it that you love?" she wailed forth; and indeed the
tone of her voice could be called little else than a wail.
"Clara, you are growing foolish."
"Don't put me off in this false way," she vehemently uttered, roused
to passion by his indifference. "Why are you always with her, stealing
walks and interviews?--why do you give to her your impassioned kisses,
and call her by endearing names? Robert, you will kill me!"
He put the heel of his boot on the bars to push down a piece of
refractory coal, probably debating with himself what he should answer.
"Considering that you are my wife, Clara, and that Lady Ellis is but a
chance acquaintance, I think you might be above this nonsense."
"Have you forgotten my dream?" she resumed, in a low tone. "Have you
forgotten that my coming to this house seemed to shadow forth my
death?"
"That dream again, of all things!" exclaimed Mr. Lake in open
surprise, involuntary sarcasm in his tone. "I thought it was done with
and dismissed."
"I have been thinking of it all the evening."
"Then I'd not confess it," he said, dropping either by accident or in
temper the hair-brush he had taken in his hand "And the notion
of my kissing Lady Ellis! and calling her--what did you phrase
it?--endearing names? That's the best joke I have heard lately."
She fixed her gaze steadfastly upon him; there was something in it
which seemed to say she could convict him of falsehood, if she chose;
and his eyes fell beneath hers.
"What has come over you, Clary? You must be turning jealous! I never
knew you so foolish before."
"No," she answered, in a tone of pain, "never before, never before."
"And why now? There's no occasion for it."
"I will not descend to explanation or reproach," she said, after a
pause; "you may ask your own conscience how much of the latter you
merit. I shall go home tomorrow; I dare not stay in this house with
that woman. Do you understand me, I _dare not_. You can accompany me
if--if---- Robert, you must choose between us."
He did not speak for a minute or two; and when he did, it was in a
careless tone, as though he wished to make light of the matter
altogether.
"Of course if you have made up your mind to return to an uncomfortable
home, half pulled down, we must do so. I am sorry for the caprice, for
we shall be choked with paint and dust."
"Very well. We go tomorrow. I will send Elizabeth over early in the
morning, to get things straight for us."
She rose as she spoke, and began to undress. His eyes fell upon the
tumbler. Taking it up he held it to the light.
"I do believe this is your whey! It is quite cold. To drink it like
this would do you no good."
"Oh, what does it signify?" she answered; as if that and all things
else were utterly indifferent to her.
Mr. Lake quitted the room without speaking. By and by he came back
with another glassful, quite hot.
"Now, Clara, drink this."
She refused at first; it would do her no good, she said; but Mr. Lake
insisted upon it. He was her husband still, and could exact obedience.
But the morrow brought no journey for Mrs. Lake. It brought illness
instead. With early morning Mr. Lake got up and aroused the house,
saying that his wife was ill. She had awoke so exceedingly
suffering--her breath impeded, her face and eyes hot and wild--as to
alarm him. Mrs. Chester hastened to her bedside, and the nearest
doctor was summoned in haste and brought to the house. He pronounced
the malady to be inflammation of the chest and lungs, and forbade her
to attempt to leave her bed. He inquired of Mrs. Lake if she knew how
she had taken it, and she told him, after a pause of hesitation, that
she had gone out of doors from a warm room the previous evening
without putting anything on, and the damp cold must have struck to
her.
Yes; it was so. As the sight she had gone out to witness struck a
chill to her heart, so did the cold and damp strike a chill to her
frame. Once before, five or six years ago, she had caught a similar
chill, and inflammation had come on in the same rapid manner. The
doctor observed that she must be especially predisposed to it, and
privately inquired of Mrs. Chester whether any of her relatives had
died of consumption. "Yes," was the answer, "her mother and her
brother."
Mr. Lake went to Katterley and brought back the gentleman who had
attended her from infancy, Dr. Marlow, an old man now. He was a
personal friend of theirs as well as medical attendant. He saw no
cause for anxiety, he said to Mr. Lake; that she was very ill there
was no doubt, but not, he thought, ill unto danger.
"She has a good constitution, she has a good constitution," urged Mr.
Lake, his tone of anxiety proving that he wished to be reassured upon
the point.
"For all I have ever seen to the contrary," replied Dr. Marlow. "She
must be more prudent for the future, and not subject herself to sudden
changes of temperature."
"She found the drawing-room very hot, and went from it into the cold
night-air. It opens with glass doors. And if you remember, doctor,
last night was raw and foggy. At least, it was so here; I don't know
what it may have been at Katterley."
So spoke Mr. Lake. But it never entered into his
carelessly-constituted mind to wonder _why_ his wife had gone out; or
whether, having gone out, she might by some curious chance have come
unsuspected across the path of himself and another.
For three weeks Mrs. Lake never left her bed. The inflammation had
taken strong hold upon her. A nice time of it those two must have had
downstairs! Robert Lake, genuinely sorry for her illness in itself,
for her prolonged seclusion, was quite an exemplary attendant, and
would pass half an hour together in the sick-chamber, indemnifying
himself by several half-hours with somebody else. Mrs. Chester of
course saw nothing; nobody on earth could be more conveniently blind
where her interest was concerned, and it would be unprofitable to her
to lose or to offend Lady Ellis. Clara lay and _imagined_ all that
might be taking place, the sweet words, the pretty endearments, the
confidential interchange of feeling and thought: it was not precisely
the way to get better.
The maid Elizabeth was her chief attendant; Anna Chester sat with her
often. Mrs. Chester, bustling and restless in a sick room as she was
elsewhere, was better out of the chamber than in it. To none of these
did Clara speak of her husband; but when Fanny ran in, as she did two
or three times a day, Clara would ask questions if nobody was within
hearing.
"Where's Mr. Lake, Fanny?"
"Oh! he's downstairs in the drawing-room."
"What is he doing?"
"Talking to Lady Ellis."
The answers would vary according to circumstances; and Fanny, too
young for any sort of suspicion, was quite ready and willing to give
them. "He is reading to Lady Ellis;" or "He is out with Lady Ellis;"
or "He and Lady Ellis are sitting together by the fire-light;" just as
it might chance to be. Twice Lady Ellis went with him to Katterley,
and gave Mrs. Lake on her return a glowing account of how quickly the
house was getting on now.
Well, the time wore away somehow, and Mrs. Lake got better and took to
sit up in her room. The first time she went downstairs was an evening
in November. She did not go down then by orders; quite the contrary.
"Not just yet," the doctor had, told her in answer to an inquiry; "in
a few days." But she felt very, very dull that afternoon, sitting
alone in her chamber. Mrs. Chester and Anna were busy downstairs,
making pickles--in the very kitchen that Clara had seen so minutely in
her dream; Elizabeth had gone on an errand to Katterley, taking Fanny
Chester, and Robert did not come up. She knew he was at home and sat
feverishly expecting him, but he never came. Very lonely felt she,
very dispirited; tears filled her eyes repeatedly, uncalled for; and
so it went on to dusk. Had everybody abandoned her? she thought,
sitting there between the lights.
The shadows of the room, only lighted by its fire, threw their sombre
darkness across, taking curious shapes. A long narrow box, containing
ferns and seaweed, stood on a stool in front of the hearth; as the
shadow of it grew deeper on the opposite wall in the rapidly fading
daylight, it began to look not unlike a coffin. As this fancy took
possession of her, the remembrance of her dream with all its
distressing terror suddenly flashed into her mind; she grew nervous
and timid; too frightened to remain alone.
Wrapping herself up in a grey chenille shawl, as warmly as her husband
had wrapped another that recent bygone night, she prepared to descend.
She was fully dressed, in a striped green silk, and her pretty hair
was plainly braided from her brow. The lovely face was thin and pale;
the dark eyes were larger and sadder than of yore; and she was very
weak yet.
Too weak to venture down the staircase alone, as she soon found. But
for clinging to the balustrades, she would have fallen. This naturally
caused her movements to be slow and quiet. She looked into the
dining-room first; it was all in darkness; then she turned to the
drawing-room, and pushed open the half-closed door. Little light was
there, either; only what came from the fire, and that was low.
Standing over it she discerned two forms, which, as she slowly
advanced with her tottering steps, revealed themselves as those of her
husband and Lady Ellis. She was in her usual evening attire: the black
silk gown with the low body and short sleeves, and some black ribbons
floated from her hair. Mr. Lake's hand was lightly resting on her
neck; ostensibly playing with the jet chain around it, and touching
her fair shoulder. Talking together, they did not hear her entrance.
"You know, Angeline," were the first words audible--when at that
moment he seemed to become conscious that some one had entered to
disturb the interview, and turned his head. Who was it? Some muffled
figure. Mr. Lake strained his eyes as it came nearer, and sent them
peering through the semidarkness. The next moment he had sprung at
least five yards from "Angeline."
"Clara! How could you be so imprudent? My dear child! you know you
ought not to have left your room."
Pushing aside Lady Ellis with, it must be confessed, little ceremony,
he dragged a couch to the warmest corner of the hearth, and took his
wife in his sheltering arms. Placing her upon it, he snatched up a
cloth mantle of Mrs. Chester's that happened to be near, and fenced
her in with it from the draught, should there be any. Then he sat down
on the same sofa, edging himself on it, as if he would also be a fence
for her against the cold. That his concern and care were genuine,
springing right from his heart, there could be no question. My Lady
Ellis, standing on the opposite side to recover her equanimity, after
having stirred the fire into a blaze, and looking on with her great
black eyes, saw that.
He bent his head slightly as he gazed on his wife, waiting in silence,
not saying a word further until her breath was calmer. Very laboured
it was just then, perhaps with the exertion of walking down, perhaps
with mental emotion.
"Now tell me why you ventured out of your room," said he, making a
prisoner of one of her hands, and speaking in a tender tone.
"I was dull: I was alone," she panted.
"Alone! dull! Where's Penelope? where's Anna? I thought they were with
you. Elizabeth, what is she about?"
She did not explain or answer. She lay back quietly as he had placed
her, her eyes closed, and her white face motionless. For the first
time Robert Lake thought he saw a look of DEATH upon it, and a strange
thrill of anguish darted through him. "What a fool I am!" quoth he to
himself, the next moment; "it's the reflection of that fire."
"My dear Mrs. Lake, I should only be too happy to sit with you when
you feel lonely," spoke Lady Ellis, as softly as her naturally harsh
voice would allow. "But you never will let me, you know."
Clara murmured some inaudible answer about not giving her trouble, and
lay quiet where her husband had placed her. He kept her hand still;
and she let him do it. He stole quick glances at her wasted features,
as if alarm had struck him. She never lifted her eyes to either of
them.
The announcement of dinner and Mrs. Chester came together. When that
lady saw who was in the drawing-room lying on the sofa, like a picture
of a ghost more than a living woman, she set up a commotion. What did
Clara mean by it? Did she come out of her room on purpose to renew her
illness? She must go back to it again. Clara simply shook her head by
way of dissent, and Mr. Lake interposed, saying she should stay if she
wished: she would get no harm in the warm room.
They went in to dinner. Not Clara; what little solid food she could
take yet was eaten in the middle of the day. There was a fowl on the
table; and Mr. Lake, leaving his own dinner to get cold, prepared to
carry a piece of it to his wife.
"It will be of no use," said Mrs. Chester to him, in rather a cross
tone, as if she thought the morsel was going to be wasted; but he
quitted the room, paying no attention.
He found his wife in a perfect paroxysm of tears, sobbing wildly. Left
alone, her long pent-up feelings had given way. Putting the plate on
the table, he bent over her--
"My dearest, this will never do. Why do you grieve so? What is the
matter?"
"Oh, you know! you know!" she answered.
There was a dead pause. She employed it in smothering and choking down
her sobs; he in any reflection that might be agreeable to him.
"I want to go home."
"The very instant that you may go with safety, you shall go," he
readily assented. "If the doctor says you may go tomorrow, Clara, why
we will. I must not have my dear little wife grieve like this."
No response. She seemed quite exhausted.
"I have brought you a bit of fowl, Clara; try and eat it."
She waved it away, briefly saying she could not touch it: she could
not eat. She waved him away, telling him to go to his dinner. Mr. Lake
simply put the plate down again, and stood near her.
"I must go home. I shall die if I stay here."
"Clara, I _promise_ that you shall go. What more can I say? The house
is sufficiently habitable now; there's nothing to detain us. Settle it
yourself with the doctor. If he says you may travel tomorrow, so be
it."
She closed her eyes--a sign that the contest was over. Mr. Lake
carried the plate of fowl back to the dining-room, not feeling
altogether upon the best terms with himself. For the first time he was
realizing the fact that his wife's full recovery might be a more
precarious affair than he had suspected.
"I knew she'd not touch it," said Mrs. Chester; "though I think she
might eat it if she would."
"Surely she is not sulky!" spoke Lady Ellis, in an undertone, to Mr.
Lake, turning her brilliant and fascinating eyes upon him, as he sat
down in his place beside her.
He was not quite bad. He cared for his wife probably as much as he had
ever done, although he had become enthralled by another, according to
his light and unsteady nature. A haughty flush darkened his brow, and
he pointedly turned from Lady Ellis without answering.
"It is the breast of the fowl wasted," cried thrifty Mrs. Chester, in
her vexation.
It was not wasted. Mr. Lake took it upon his own plate, and made his
dinner off it, never speaking a word all the while to anybody.
What of that? With her wiles and her sweet glances, my lady won
him round again to good-humour; and before the meal was over he
was as much her own as ever. But when the dessert was put on the
table--consisting of a dish of apples and another of nuts--Mr. Lake
left them to it, and went back to his wife.
She lay on the sofa all the evening. Mrs. Chester grumbled at the
imprudence; but Clara said it was a change for the better: she was so
tired of her bedroom. Her husband waited upon her at tea--a willing
slave; and Clara really said a few cheerful words. Lady Ellis
challenged him to chess again afterwards. Mrs. Chester and Anna sat by
Clara.
"Very shortly," said the doctor, the following morning, in answer to
the appeal which Mr. Lake himself made. "Yearning for home, is she? I
fancied there was something of the sort. Not today: perhaps not
tomorrow; but I think you may venture to take her the following one,
provided the wind's fair."
"All right," was the answer. "Tell her so yourself, will you, my good
sir?"
Clara was told accordingly. And on the third day, sure enough, the
wind being fair and soft for November, Mr. and Mrs. Lake terminated
their long sojourn at Guild, and returned to Katterley.
Home at last! In her exhilaration of spirit, it seemed just as though
she had taken a renewed lease of happy life.
CHAPTER IX.
Colour Blindness.
The difference of opinion touching the lights at the railway station
on the night of the fatal accident, continued to create no small
sensation. The jury turned nearly rampant; vowing they'd not attend
the everlastingly adjourned inquest, and wanting every time to return
no verdict at all, say they could not, and have done with it. The
coroner told them that was impossible; though he avowed that he did
not see his way clearly out of it. But for being the responsible
party, he would have willingly pitched the whole affair into the sea.
Over and over again did the public recount the circumstances one with
another. When anybody could get hold of a stranger, hitherto in happy
ignorance, he thought himself in luck, and went gushingly into all the
details. It was a stock-in-trade for the local newspapers; and two of
them entered on a sharp weekly controversy in regard to it. In truth,
the matter, that is the conflict in the evidence, was most remarkable.
That one party should stand to it the lights were red, and that the
other should maintain they were green, was astonishing from the simple
fact that both sides were worthy of credit. In the earlier stage of
the enquiry the coroner had significantly remarked upon the "hard
swearing somewhere:" it seemed more of a mystery than ever on which
side that reproach could attach to. The jury could arrive at no
decision, and thus the inquest had been adjourned time after time, and
now the county was getting tired of it. Cooper, meanwhile suspended
from employment, stood a chance of being reduced to straits if it
lasted much longer. The colonel and Oliver Jupp, who had become
intimate, made rather merry over it when they met, each accusing the
other of having "seen double;" but neither would give way an inch. The
lawyers were confounded, and knew not which side to believe; neither
of the two gentlemen had the slightest personal interest in the
matter; they spoke to further the ends of justice alone, and the one
and the other were alike worthy of credit.
Affairs were in this unsatisfactory state, when a gentleman arrived in
the neighbourhood on a short sojourn, a Dr. Macpherson, LL.D., F.R.S.,
and so on; about seventeen letters in all he could put after his name
if he chose to do it. He was a man great in science, had devoted the
most part of his life to it, no branch came amiss to him; he had
travelled much and was renowned in the world. Amidst other
acquirements he had phrenology at his fingers' ends, being as much at
home in it as we poor unlearned mortals are in reading a newspaper; or
as Mr. Lake was in making himself agreeable to a pretty woman.
They were staying at the "Rose Inn," at Guild, this learned gentleman
and his wife. Professor Macpherson (as he was frequently called) had
come down on some mission connected with geology. He was a very wire
of a man, tall and thin as a lamp-post, exceedingly near-sighted, even
in his silver-rimmed spectacles that he constantly wore; a meek,
gentle, simple-minded man, whose coats and hats were threadbare, a
very child in the ways of the world; as these excessively abstruse
spirits are apt to be.
Mrs. Macpherson was in all respects his opposite: stout in figure,
fine in dress, loud in speech; and keen in the affairs of common life.
Good-hearted enough at the main, but sadly wanting in refinement,
Mrs. Macpherson rarely pleased at first; in short, not to mince the
matter, she was undeniably vulgar. Mrs. Macpherson's education had not
been equal to her merits; her early associations were not of the
silver-fork school. She was a very pretty girl when Caleb Macpherson
(not the great man he was now) married her; habit reconciles us to
most things, and he had discovered no fault in her yet. That she made
him a good wife was certain, and a very capable one.
This was the second visit Professor Macpherson had made to Guild. The
first took place about half a dozen years ago, when he had come on a
question of "pneumatics." He had then become acquainted with the
Reverend Mr. Chester, not himself unlearned in science, and had spent
several hours of three separate days at the rectory. James Chester had
gone now where science probably avails not; Mrs. Chester had quitted
the rectory; and it might have chanced that the acquaintanceship would
never have been renewed but for an accidental meeting.
Mrs. Chester was walking quickly into Guild on an errand when she met
him. He would have passed her; her style of dress was altered--and for
the matter of that he always went (as his wife put it) mooning on, his
head in the skies and looking at nobody. But Mrs. Chester stopped him.
Except that he looked taller and thinner, and his coat a little more
threadbare than of old, and his spectacles staring out straighter up
at the clouds or at the far-off horizon, he was not altered.
"Have you forgotten me, Dr. Macpherson?"
It took the doctor some few minutes to bring himself and his thoughts
down to the level of passing life. Mrs. Chester had to tell him who
she was, and that she was now alone in the world. He took both her
hands in his then, and spoke a few words of genuine sympathy, with the
sorrowful look in his kind eyes, and the tone of true pity coming from
his ever-open heart.
"You will come and call on me, will you not?" she asked, after telling
him where she lived.
"I'll come this evening," he said, "and bring my wife. She's with me
this time."
So Mrs. Chester went home and told Lady Ellis of the promised visit.
That lady, who had been fit to die of weariness since the departure of
Mr. Lake, welcomed it eagerly; on the principle that even an old
professor with seventeen letters beyond his name was of the man
species, and consequently better than nobody.
"I don't know his wife," spoke Mrs. Chester. "She is rather exclusive,
most likely. The wife of a man who has made so much noise in the world
may look down upon us."
Lady Ellis raised her black eyebrows and had a great mind to tell Mrs.
Chester to speak for herself; _she_ was not accustomed to be looked
down upon.
"Does the wife wear a threadbare gown?" she asked, having heard the
description of the professor's coats.
"Very likely," said Mrs. Chester. "She need not, you know; they are
rich."
"Rich, are they?"
"Very rich--now. In early life they had to pinch and screw, and live
without a servant. Dr. Macpherson told us about it."
"He is not above confessing it, then?"
"He!" Mrs. Chester laughed. The simple professor, being "above"
confessing anything of that sort, was a ludicrous idea. She attempted
to describe him as he was.
"My dear Lady Ellis, you can have no notion of his simplicity--his
utter unworldliness. In all that relates to learning and that sort of
thing he is of the very keenest intellect; sharp; but in social life
he is just a child. He would respect a woman who has to wash up her
dishes herself just as much as he would if she kept ten servants to do
it for her. I don't believe he can distinguish any difference."
"Oh!" concluded Lady Ellis, casting a gesture of contempt on the
absent and unconscious professor.
Dr. Macpherson meanwhile, immediately after parting with Mrs. Chester,
put his hand in his pocket for his case of gradients--or whatever the
name might be--and found he had not got it. To go geologizing or
botanizing without it would have been so much waste of time, and he
turned back to the "Rose." It was well for the evening visit that he
did so; but for telling his wife at once while it was fresh in his
head, they had never paid it; for the professor would have forgotten
all about it in half an hour.
Mrs. Macpherson sat fanning herself at the window. She was a stout
woman, comely, red-faced, and jolly; and the fire was large, throwing
out a great heat. Her face and that of her pale thin husband's
presented a very contrast. She wore a bright green silk gown,
garnished with scarlet, and scarlet bows in her rich lace cap.
"I forgot my case, Betsy," said he, on entering.
"'Twouldn't be you, prefessor, if you didn't forget some'at," returned
she, equably. "For a man who has had his head filled with learning,
you be the greatest oaf I know."
Accustomed to these compliments from his wife--meekly receiving them
as his due--Dr. Macpherson took up his case, a thick pocket-book
apparently, the size of a small milestone. He then mentioned his
meeting with Mrs. Chester, and the promised evening visit, which was
received favourably.
"It'll be a godsend," said Mrs. Macpherson. "With you over them
writings of yours, and me a-nodding asleep, the evenings here is
fearful dull. Is the invite for tea and supper?"
Rather a puzzling question. Tea and supper were so little thought of
by the professor, that but for his wife he might never have partaken
of either; and he had to consider for some moments before he could hit
upon any answer.
"I don't think it is, Betsy; I only said I'd call."
"Oh!" returned Mrs. Macpherson, ungraciously, for she liked good
cheer,--"It'll hardly be worth going for. It's not a party, then?"
The professor supposed not. On these matters of social intercourse his
ideas were always misty. He remembered that Mrs. Chester said she had
a Lady Ellis visiting her, and mentioned the fact.
Mrs. Macpherson brightened up. "A _Lady_ Ellis! Are you sure?"
"Yes; I think I'm sure."
"Well now, Caleb, you look here. We must go properly," said Mrs.
Macpherson. "I never was brought into contract with a real live lady
in my life; I haven't never had the chance of saying 'your ladyship,'
except in sport. We'll have out a chaise and pair, and, drive up in
it."
Had she proposed to drive up in a chaise and eight, it would have been
all one to the professor. Conscious of his own deficiency on the score
of sociality (not sociability) and fashion, he had been content this
many a year to leave these things to her.
They arrived at Mrs. Chester's about seven. The chaise and pair
rattled up to the gate; but as it was dark night, the pomp of the
arrival could not be seen from within, and the gilt was taken off the
gingerbread. It happened that Mr. Lake had come over that afternoon--a
rather frequent occurrence--and Mrs. Chester had asked him to stay and
see the strangers. He and Lady Ellis were at their usual game, chess,
and Mrs. Chester was at work close by, when the visitors were
announced by Nanny, the names having been given her by the lady--
"Professor and Mrs. Macpherson."
He came in first--the long, thin, absorbed, self-denying man, in his
threadbare frock-coat. Mrs. Macpherson had left off fighting against
these coats long ago. She ordered him in new ones in vain. As soon as
one came home, he would put it on unconsciously, utterly unable to
distinguish between that and his old one, and go to his work in it:
"his chemical tests, and his proofs, and all that rubbish," as she was
in the habit of saying. Somehow he had a knack of wearing his coats
out incredibly quick, or else the poisons and the fires did it for
him. In a week the new one would be as bad as the rest--shabby and
threadbare. Mrs. Macpherson grew tired at last. "After all, it don't
much matter," was her final conclusion, in pardonable pride. "Good
coat or bad coat, he's Prefessor Macpherson." His scanty dark hair was
brushed smoothly across his head, his brown eyes, shining through his
spectacles, went kindly out in search of Mrs. Chester, who advanced to
receive him.
"My wife, ma'am; Mrs. Macpherson."
Mrs. Macpherson came in--a ship in full sail. She had dressed herself
to go into the presence of a real live lady. _She_ did not travel
without her attire, if he did. The forgetful man was apt to start on a
journey with nothing but what he stood up in; she took travelling
trunks.
An amber satin gown with white brocade flowers on it, white lace
shawl, and small bonnet with nodding bird-of-paradise feather, white
gloves, flaxen hair. Lady Ellis simply stared while the introductions
were gone through and seats were taken. Mrs. Macpherson was free and
unreserved in her conversation with strangers, concealing nothing.
"I was as glad as anything when the prefessor said we were coming here
for a call this evening," she remarked to Mrs. Chester. "Not knowing a
soul in the place, it's naturally dull for me; and we shall have to
stop a week at it, I b'lieve."
"You were not with Dr. Macpherson last time, when I and my late
husband had the pleasure of making his acquaintance," observed Mrs.
Chester, surreptitiously regarding the bird-of-paradise.
"Not I," answered Mrs. Macpherson. "If I went about always with him, I
should have a life of it. What with his geographies, and his botanies,
and his astronomies, and his chemistries, and his social sciences, and
the meetings he has to attend in all parts of the globe, and the
country excursions the societies make in a body, he is not much at
home."
"This is only the second visit he has paid to Guild, I think?"
"That's all. It's geology this time; last time it was--Prefessor,
what's the name of the thing you were down here for last?" broke off
Mrs. Macpherson.
"Pneumatics," he answered, looking lovingly at the child, Fanny
Chester, and a bit of heath she was showing him.
"Eumatics," repeated Mrs. Macpherson. "Not that I can ever understand
what it means. The name's hard enough, let alone the thing itself."
Perhaps the other ladies were in the same blissful ignorance. Mr. Lake
checkmated his adversary, left her to put up the men, and went over to
the professor.
Before tea came in they were out in the garden peering about by
starlight, the remains of an old Roman wall there, that Mr. Lake
happened to mention, keenly exciting the interest of the professor.
Mrs. Macpherson was invited to take off her things, and she threw
the handsome white shawl aside; but having brought no cap, the
bird-of-paradise retained its place. This much might be said for her,
that though addicted to very gay clothes, they were always rich and
good. Mrs. Macpherson would have worn nothing poor or tawdry.
"How fond they are of these miserable bits of things--pieces of an old
wall, strata of earth, wild plants, and such rubbish!" exclaimed Lady
Ellis, with acrimony, inwardly vexed that Mr. Lake should have gone
out a-roving.
"Rubbish it is--your ladyship's right," spoke Mrs. Macpherson.
"Leastways, so it seems to us: but when folks have gifted minds, as
the prefessor has, why perhaps they can see beauties in 'em that's hid
to us others."
Not very complimentary on the whole; but Lady Ellis did not choose to
see it.
"Of course," she said, "your husband is wonderfully clever; he has a
world-wide fame. I heard of him in India."
"Clever on one side, a gander on t'other," said Mrs. Macpherson.
"A gander?"
"Well, you'd not say a goose, I suppose. In his sciences and his
ologies, and his chemicals and his other learnings, why he's uncommon;
there's hardly his equal, the public says. But take him in the useful
things of life, your ladyship, and see what he's good for. Law bless
me!"
"Not for much, I suppose," laughed Mrs. Chester.
"I'd be bound that any child of seven would have more sense. But for
me helping him to it, he'd never have a meal; no, I don't believe, as
I'm an honest woman, that he'd recollect to sit down to one. When he's
away from me, he, as I tell him, goes in for trying to live upon air."
"Do you mean that he really tries to see if he can live upon it?"
"Bless you, no. He must know he couldn't. What I mean is, that he
neglects his food--either forgets it out and out, or does not find
time to sit down to it. And then his clothes! Look at the coat he has
got on now."
Neither of the two ladies having particularly noticed the coat, they
could not make much answering comment. Mrs. Macpherson, fond of
talking, did not wait for any.
"I wonder sometimes what would become of him, and how long he would
wear a coat, but for being looked after. Why, till it dropped off his
back. I have to put every earthly thing ready for him--even to a
pocket-handkercher--and then he can't see them. I used to let him have
a chest of drawers to himself, handkerchers in one, gloves and collars
in another, shirts in a third, and so on. He'd want, let's say, a
necktie. Every individual thing would be taken out of every drawer,
nicked over, thrown on the floor, and he in quite a state of
agitation. Up I'd go, and show it to him. There it would be, staring
him in the face, right under his very eyes."
"And he not seeing it?"
"Never. I soon left off letting him have the control of his own
drawers. I give him one now, and lock up the rest, so that he has to
call me when he wants things. He'll have his spectacles on his nose
and be looking after them; his hand might be touching the ink, and
he'd not see it. Ah! One might wonder why such useless mortals were
born."
"But the professor is so kind and good," observed Mrs. Chester.
"I didn't say he wasn't; I'm not complaining of him," returned the
professor's lady, giving a nod to the bird-of-paradise. "One tells
these things as one would tell stories of a child that's not
responsible for its actions. His brains are too clever, you know, for
ordinary life. Thank ye, ma'am; I like it pretty sweet. There again,
in the small matter of sugar: put the cup half full, or put in none at
all, and it's all one to the prefessor; he'd never notice the
difference."
"I once knew a very clever but very absent man who went to a wedding
in his slippers," said Lady Ellis, leaning back in her armchair and
speaking languidly for the benefit of the lady opposite. "He had
forgotten to put his boots on."
"That's nothing; your ladyship should live for a month with Prefessor
Macpherson. I've quaked in fear before now of seeing him go out
without----worse things than boots."
Mrs. Chester laughed; and what further revelations might have been
made were put an end to by the entrance of the professor himself and
Mr. Lake. They came in talking eagerly, not of the Roman wall, but of
the late fatal railway accident. Mr. Lake was giving him the details,
and especially those relating to the conflicting nature of the
evidence. As soon as Dr. Macpherson had mastered the particulars, he
gave it as his opinion that it must be a case of colour-blindness.
"Of colour-blindness?" echoed Mr. Lake.
"Rely upon it, it is a case of colour-blindness on one side or the
other," continued the professor, who was now showing himself in his
element, the keen man of science, the sensible, sound-judging
reasoner. And so well did he proceed to argue the matter, so aptly and
clearly did he lay the case before them, that Mr. Lake was half
converted; and it was decided that the theory should be followed up.
On the next day the professor was brought into contact with Colonel
West and Oliver Jupp, Mr. Lake having arranged a meeting at his own
house. One or two friends were also present. The subject was entered
upon, and the professor's opinion given. Oliver Jupp believed he might
be right; the colonel was simply astonished at the assertion.
"Not know colours!" cried he. "Not able to tell white from black! Why,
what have our eyes been about all our lives, Mr. Professor? My sight
is keen and clear; I can answer for that; and I've not heard that
there's anything amiss with Mr. Oliver Jupp's."
"It has nothing whatever to do with a keen sight--in the way you are
thinking of," returned Dr. Macpherson. "Nay, it frequently happens
that those who are afflicted with colour-blindness possess a
remarkably good and clear sight. The defect is not in the vision: it
lies in the absence of the organ of colour."
"That's logic," laughed the colonel, who had never heard of such a
theory, and did not believe many others had.
"Look here," said the professor, endeavouring to put the case in an
understandable light "You will allow that men are differently endowed.
One man will have the gift of calculation in an eminent degree; he
will go through a whole ledger swimmingly, while his friend by his
side is labouring at a single column of it: another will possess the
organ of music so largely that he will probably make you a second
Mozart; but his own brother can't tell one tune from another, and
could not learn to play if his very life depended on it: this man will
draw you, untaught, plans and buildings of wondrous and beautiful
design; that one, who has served his stupid apprenticeship to the art,
cannot accomplish a pigsty fit for a civilized pig to live in--and so
I might go on, illustrating examples all. Am I right or wrong?" he
concluded, turning his spectacles full on his attentive listeners.
"Right," they all said, including Colonel West.
"Very well," resumed the professor. "Then I would ask you, gentlemen,
why should colour be an exception? I mean the capability of perceiving
it; the faculty of distinguishing one shade from another?"
There was no immediate answer. The professor went on.
"This brain is totally deficient in the organ of tune; that one is
deficient in some other faculty; a third in something else: why should
not the organ of colour sometimes fail?"
"I thought everybody possessed the organ of colour," observed Mr.
Lake.
"The greater portion of people do possess it; but there are many who
do not."
Colonel West, unconvinced, was rather amused than otherwise. "And you
think, sir, that I and Mr. Oliver Jupp do not possess it," he said,
laughing.
"Pardon me," replied the professor, laughing also, "I never said you
both did not. Had that been the case, you probably would not have been
in opposition to each other. But I have been using my own eyes since
we stood here, and I see which of you has the defect. One of you
possesses the organ of colour (as we call it) in a full degree; the
other does not possess it at all. It lies here."
Dr. Macpherson raised his fingers to his eyebrow, and pointed out a
spot near its middle. The colonel and Oliver Jupp immediately passed
their fingers over their eyebrows, somewhat after the manner of a
curious child. Oliver's eyebrows were prominent; the colonel's
remarkably flat.
"You can testify by experiment whether I am right or wrong, Colonel
West; but I give it as my opinion that you are not able to distinguish
colours."
For some moments the colonel could not find his tongue. "I never heard
of such a thing in all my life!" cried he. "Do you mean to say that I
can see the blue sky" (turning his face upwards), "and not know it's
blue?"
"You know it is blue, and call it blue, because you have heard it so
called all your life," returned the undaunted professor. "But, if half
the sky were blue and half green, you would not be able to say which
was the green half and which the blue."
"That caps everything," retorted the colonel, in high good-humour.
"It's a pity my wife can't hear this; she'd shake hands with you at
once. She has, you must know, a couple of garden parasols: one green,
the other blue. If she sends me indoors for the green, she says I
bring her the blue; and if for the blue, I bring the green. She sets
it down to inattention, and lectures me accordingly."
"You could not have given us a better confirmation that my opinion is
correct," said Professor Macpherson, glancing at the group around.
"Your wife has set this down to inattention, you say, colonel. May I
ask what you have set it down to?"
"I? Not to anything. I never troubled myself to think about it."
The learned gentleman rubbed his hands with satisfaction. "What you
acknowledge is so true to nature, colonel! Those who, like you, are
affected with colour-blindness, can rarely be brought to believe in
their own defect. It is a fact that the greater portion of them _are
not conscious of it_; they really don't know that they cannot
distinguish colours. Some few have perhaps a dim idea that they are
not so quick in that particular as others, but they never think of
questioning the cause. To use your own expression, it does not trouble
them. I understand you maintain that on the night of the accident the
usual light was up--green?"
"Yes," said the colonel. "They exhibit the green light always at
Coombe Dalton station, to enforce caution, on account of the nasty
turning just after passing it. I maintain, as you say, that the
customary green light was shown that night."
"Now I will tell you how to account for that belief;" said the
professor. "It was not so much that you could be sure the _green_
light was up, as that you could not distinguish any difference between
the one you saw, and the one you were accustomed to see. You could not
discern the difference, I say, and therefore you maintained it to be,
as you believed, the same one--the green."
"This seems plausible enough, as you state it," acknowledged Colonel
West, at length. "But pray why should it not be my young friend, Jupp,
who was mistaken--and not I?"
The professor shook his head. "I am quite sure that this
gentleman"--indicating Oliver Jupp--"can never be mistaken in colours
or in their shades, so long as he retains his eyesight to see
anything: he has the organ very largely developed. I am right,
colonel," he added, nodding.
"But what do you say to Cooper, the driver?" returned the colonel. "He
says the light was green: and everybody agrees that he would only
assert what was true."
"What he thought was true," corrected Dr. Macpherson. "There is little
doubt, in my mind, that Cooper's case will turn out to be like your
own--a fact of colour-blindness. He could not distinguish the
difference in the light from the ordinary light, and therefore
believed it to be the same."
"_Both_ of us blind!" exclaimed the colonel, with wide-open eyes.
"That would be too good, Mr. Professor."
"I said only colour-blind," corrected the professor. "There is not the
least doubt that it will turn out to be so."
And he carried the opinions of nearly all present with him. It seemed,
indeed, to be the only feasible solution of the difficulty; and so the
gentlemen said to each other as they dispersed.
"I promised to take you in to see my wife," whispered Mr. Lake to the
man of science, arresting him as he was departing.
Clara was sitting in an easy-chair, a shawl on her shoulders; but she
looked up brightly when the professor entered. If the old feeling of
secure happiness had not come back again, a portion of it had; and she
said to everybody that she was getting well. Mary Jupp was with her.
They had felt half scared at the thought of encountering familiarly so
renowned a man. He turned out to be a very shy and simple one--in
manners, at least; and Miss Jupp, in the revulsion of relieved
feeling, nearly talked him deaf.
"She's a pretty thing, that young man's wife," observed the professor
to Mrs. Macpherson, when he had got back to Guild. "But I'd not like
to take an insurance on her life."
"I never knew you had turned doctor, prefessor."
"It does not require a doctor's eye to see when a blossom's delicate,
Betsy. And those delicate blossoms want a vast deal of care."
The strange opinion avowed by Dr. Macpherson, that the matter which
had been puzzling the world so long, would turn out to be a case of
colour-blindness, excited the wonder of the simple country people. In
these rural districts men are content to live without science, and
cannot well understand it when it is brought home to them. This
opinion, nevertheless, coming from so great an authority, obtained
weight with all, causing some commotion; and it was resolved to test
the sight of the unfortunate driver, Cooper. Colonel West proposed,
half jokingly, half seriously, that his own eyes should also be
tested. It would set the matter at rest in his mind, he said. Mrs.
West devoutly wished she could be present, and see the solution of
what had been hitherto inexplicable. "I'd used to tell that husband of
mine he couldn't see colours," she exclaimed to a select audience,
"but I didn't really suppose it was so; I thought he was careless and
stupid."
On the evening fixed for the test, those concerned in it assembled at
the station of Coombe Dalton. Matthew Cooper came from Katterley in
obedience to the summons sent for him. Colonel West, Mr. Lake, Oliver
Jupp, the coroner, and some of the jury were present: and others also
with whom we have had nothing to do.
The instant that Professor Macpherson cast his eyes on Cooper's face,
he found his anticipation verified. The man laboured under the defect
of colour-blindness, in even a greater degree than Colonel West.
They proceeded to the trial. Lamps of various colours were in
readiness, and the Professor was constituted master of the ceremonies.
He commenced his task by running up a light to the signal-post.
Colonel West and Cooper stood a little forward; the coroner and other
interested people, official and otherwise, behind; the mob behind
them; all at a convenient distance from the lights.
"What light is that?" asked Dr. Macpherson of the two who were on
trial, amidst breathless silence.
A momentary pause. Colonel West and Cooper turned their eyes up to the
raised lamp; the crowd turned theirs.
"It's green," said the colonel.
"It's red," said Cooper.
And there arose a general laugh. For the lamp was blue.
Two lamps were next run up.
"What are they?" was the demand
A dead silence ensued. _Neither Cooper nor the colonel could tell_.
"I ask what are the colours of these two lamps?" repeated the
professor.
"I think they are green and white," hazarded Cooper, at length.
"And I say they are red and blue," cried the colonel.
They were white and blue.
Then the four lamps were exhibited, green, red, white, and blue, and
the mistakes made by both essayists kept the platform in a roar. The
colonel did tell which was the white--but it was probably more of a
guess than a certainty. They could distinguish a "difference," they
said, between two or more colours when exhibited at once, but were
unable to state what that difference was. Both of them were honestly
anxious that the test should be fully carried out, and answered to the
utmost of their ability. Various colours were exhibited, sometimes two
of nearly the same shade: it all came to the same. Long before the
experiment came to an end, the fact had been fully established that
both Colonel West and Matthew Cooper laboured under the defect of
colour-blindness.
"Cooper," said Oliver Jupp, in a good-natured tone, "they must never
make an engine-driver of you again."
"Well, I don't know, sir," returned Cooper, who seemed very
chapfallen, "if it's true what this strange gentleman says, why--I
suppose it is true. But I hope they'll make something else of me; I
know I am keen enough at most things. If a man is deficient in one
line, he may be all the quicker in another."
"Now you have given utterance to a truism, without perhaps knowing
it," interposed the professor, cheerily. "Be assured that where a
defect does exist, it is amply made up for by the largeness of some
other gift. Never fear that an intelligent man, like you, will want
employment, because you are found not suited to the one they placed
you on."
"About the worst they could have given him, as it turns out," remarked
Oliver Jupp, as he stood aside with the professor out of the hearing
of others. "An engine-driver ought, of all men, to be able to
distinguish colours."
"There are some of our engine-drivers who do not, though," was the
reply, as the professor cautiously lowered his voice. "Several of our
worst accidents have occurred from this very fact."
"Do you think so?"
"I know it. It is a more frequent defect than would be thought, this
absence of the organ of colour, but it is one to which little
attention has been hitherto given; a subject that with some excites
ridicule. A company engaging an engine-driver would as soon think of
testing his capacity for eating a good dinner, as that of being able
to distinguish signal lights. Most essentially necessary is it,
though, that drivers, present or future, should undergo the
examination."
"It seems so to me," said Oliver. "And always will seem so--after this
night's experiment."
"And until such examination is made general, I should change the form
of the signal lamps," remarked Dr. Macpherson. "Let the safety signal
be of one uniform shape, and small; let the red, or danger signal, be
of as different a shape as can be made, and large; so different that
it could never fail to catch the eye. For, look you, a head deficient
in the organ of colour will usually have that of form very much
developed: and if a driver could not see the light, he might the form:
and so save his train."
"Quite right," said. Oliver.
"In many of the railway calamities we read of, you find that a
difference of testimony exists as to the colour of the signal
exhibited. One side or the other is supposed to swear falsely; just as
it has been in this case. But for the testimony of Colonel West, the
jury would have returned a verdict against Cooper at once, and
convicted him of falsehood. But rely upon it, the cause, generally
speaking, of these conflicting and painful cases lies not in false
swearing, but in colour-blindness."
So concluded the professor. And so was concluded the long-adjourned
puzzle that had set Coombe Dalton together by the ears. Once more the
inquest was called for the last time; and the jury returned a verdict
of "Accidental death." In the face of the proved defect in Cooper's
capacity for distinguishing the different signals, how could they with
justice punish him? He was sent forth, a free man so far, but
discharged from his employment to begin the world again.
Now, my friendly readers, the above is a bit of honest truth; a
fact from the past. It may be that you will not believe it; may
feel inclined to cavil at it. But search cases out and mark for
yourselves. Blindness to colour is a far more common defect than the
world suspects: it has existed--and does exist--in some of the
railway-engine guards and drivers.
CHAPTER X.
Mary Jupp's Explosion.
A frosty day in December. Time had gone on, winter had come in: the
seasons go their round, whatever the world may be doing.
How grew Clara Lake? Better? Well, she did not seem to grow much
better; at any rate, she was not well, and the old doctor at
Katterley, who had known her constitution from infancy, appeared
puzzled. She dressed, as in her days of health, and went about the
house: on fine days would go out for a walk in the sunshine: but she
remained weak and debilitated, and could not get rid of her cough.
Compared to the dangerous attack she had at Guild, of course her
present state seemed to be a vast improvement. On first coming home,
the change for the better appeared to be marvellous; and Mr. Lake,
never seeing anything but the bright side of things, congratulated
himself that she was well again. The improvement did not go on as it
ought to have gone; but the falling off was so gradual, the increasing
degrees of weakness were so imperceptible, that he neither saw nor
suspected either. Had any one told him his wife was in a bad way, he
had simply stared in amazement. Latterly the inertness, the seeming
debility had certainly made itself apparent to him, but only as a dim
idea; so little importance did he attach to it, that he set it all
down to apathy on his wife's part, and chided her for not "rousing
herself." He did not mean to be unkind; never think that of him; for
his wife he would have gone through fire and water, as the saying
runs; but he was light, unobservant by nature, and careless.
He was enjoying himself immensely. Chiefly dividing his leisure time
between Katterley and Guild. To-day he would be at home with his wife,
tomorrow with Lady Ellis; the affectionate husband to the one, saying
soft nothings (it must be supposed) to the other. Of course he never
went for the sake of seeing my lady; certainly not; there was an
excuse ever ready. Mrs. Chester had given him this commission, and he
must go and report to her; or Mrs. Chester had given him the other; or
she wanted to consult him on her affairs, which were going downwards;
or he went over to escort some of the Jupps; or he had business with
his tailor; for he had fallen into a freak to employ one who lived at
Guild. On one plea or another, a plausible excuse for taking him to
Guild never failed.
The fault of this lay partially with Mrs. Chester. Nearly at her wits'
end lest Lady Ellis, wearied with the monotony of the house, should
leave her; plainly seeing that Mr. Lake's visits were the sole
attraction that kept her, Mrs. Chester invented demands upon him to
draw him over to Guild. That the confidential footing on which he and
Lady Ellis continued was scarcely seemly for a married man, Mrs.
Chester completely ignored. She shut her eyes to it; just as she had
shut them in the days when Clara was at Guild. I am telling the simple
truth of the woman, and things took place exactly as I am relating
them. What mattered it to Mrs. Chester whether the wife's feelings
were pained, outraged, so long as her own ends were served? Clara was
at a safe distance, seeing nothing; and, after all, it was but a bit
of passing nonsense between them--there was no real wrong, reasoned
Mrs. Chester in her sophistry. "What the eye does not see the heart
cannot rue."
"But Mr. Lake ought not to have given way to her," remonstrates the
upright reader. Of course he ought not, everybody knows that; but
he liked the pastime. Lady Ellis made herself uncommonly attractive
to him, and it never occurred to him to see that she ought not to
have done so. She was exacting now; saying to him "You must come
tomorrow," or "You must come the next day." They rode together and
walked together as before; not so much, because it was winter weather;
and they strolled out in the wide gardens in the dim afternoons, and
sat alone very much in the drawing-room by twilight.
Unfortunately these pleasant arrangements were not kept from Clara. If
she had partially forgotten her jealousy upon returning home, her
husband's constant visits to Guild, and the whispers reaching her from
thence, brought it back in all its unhappy force. She was not told
purposely. Of the Jupps, the only one whose eyes were open to the
flirtation going on--that is, to a suspicion that it was deeper than
it ought to be, considering that Mr. Lake had a wife--was the eldest
of them, Mary. She held her tongue. But the others, after a day spent
at Guild, would jokingly allude in Clara's hearing to the soft hours
spent together by him and Lady Ellis, and tell her she ought to keep
her husband in better order. They meant nothing. Had Clara been there
she might have thought far less of it than she was doing; incertitude
always increases suspicion, just as jealousy makes the food it feeds
on. So Mrs. Lake sat at home with her cough, and her increasing
weakness, and her miserable torture; conscious of little save one
great fact, that her husband was perpetually at Guild. Had he gone
more openly, as it were, without framing (as he invariably did) some
plausible plea for the journey, she had thought less. What could Clara
do? Could she descend to say to him, you shall not go there? No; she
suffered in silence; but it was killing her.
A bright December morning, clear and frosty, Mrs. Lake was seated at
the window in their comfortable room, making tiny little flannel
petticoats. There was a good deal of distress in Katterley, and she
was intending to give warm garments to sundry poor half-naked
children. Stooping over the work, her cheeks had acquired their hectic
tinge, seen frequently now, otherwise the face was pale and thin; the
fingers were attenuated. Mr. Lake, who had been looking at the
newspaper, reading occasional scraps of news from it to his wife, rose
from his chair by the fire and stretched himself.
"How busy you are, little wife! Who on earth are all those small
things for?"
"The poor children in the cottages by the brick-fields. They are so
badly off, Robert," she added, glancing up, with a pleading look. "I
could not help doing something for them."
"All right, my dear; do whatever you like. Only, don't over-work
yourself."
"There's no fear of that. Elizabeth will do part of them; and Mary
Jupp is coming to help me."
"What a lovely day it is for December!" he added, looking at the
sparkling sunlight.
"Very. It almost tempts me to go out."
"I will take you tomorrow, Clara; I must go to Guild today."
Mrs. Lake resumed her work with trembling fingers. "Penelope's watch
is at Van Buren's. I promised faithfully to take it to her today."
"Are there no watchmakers at Guild, that Mrs. Chester should send her
watch to Katterley?"
"I don't know. I brought it to him at her request a fortnight ago. Van
Buren has a great name in his trade, you know."
As he spoke he looked at his own watch; it was time to depart.
"Shall you be home to dinner, Robert?"
"No. But I shall to tea. I shall be in by the seven train. Good-bye,
Clary."
She raised her face with its crimson hectic colour, the result of
emotion, to receive his farewell kiss. Its loveliness could but strike
him.
"How well you are getting to look, my darling," he said, tenderly.
And it would no doubt have astonished Mr. Lake excessively could he
have glanced back at his wife through the garden and the walls of the
house as he went off, gaily whistling. Dropping her work on the floor,
she fell into a storm of sobs in her utter self-abandonment. Miss Jupp
came in, and so found her.
"Clara! _Clara!_"
Up she got: but to affect indifference was an impossibility. Mary
Jupp, greatly shocked, took the sorrowful face in her sheltering arms.
"Tell me what it is, Clara. Open your poor little heart to me, my
dear. I am older than you by many years, and have had trouble myself.
Where's your husband?"
"Gone to Guild."
"Oh," said Miss Jupp, shortly, who had her private opinion on many
things. "Well, dear, he has got a nice day for it."
Clara dried her eyes and stifled her sobs, and sat down to work again.
"I am so stupid," she said, in a tone of apology. "Since my illness I
don't feel strong; it makes me cry sometimes."
Mary Jupp said no more, perhaps wisely. She took her things off and
remained the day. And Mr. Lake got home, not by seven at night, but by
the last train.
Christmas approached, and Mrs. Lake got thinner and weaker. Still her
husband suspected nothing amiss. She rose in the morning, went through
her duties, such as they were, and had a bright colour. How was he, an
unobservant man by nature and habit, to detect that it was all wrong?
Had he suspected the truth, none would have been more anxiously
troubled than he.
It was in Clara Lake's nature to conceal what was amiss. With these
reticent temperaments, a great grief touching the heart, a grief unto
death, never can be spoken of. At the last, perhaps, when hours are
numbered, but not always then. _He_ saw no signs of it: the low
spirits, the nervous weakness were given way to when alone: never
before him. Except that she had grown strangely still and quiet, he
saw no alteration. She tried to be cheerful, and succeeded often.
So the days, as I have said, glided on, bringing the end nearer and
nearer. Mr. Lake went on his heedless way, and she sat at home and did
silent battle with the anguish that was killing her. Her history is
drawing to a close. The world, going round in its hard, matter-of-fact
reality, is apt to laugh at such stories; but they are taking place,
for all that, in some of its nooks and corners.
One day, when it wanted but three or four to Christmas, Mr. Lake
tempted his wife into the greenhouse to see his winter plants. She was
more cheerful than customary--talked more; an artificial renovation
had brought back some of the passing strength.
"Clary, I have promised to spend Christmas-day with Penelope."
A sudden rush of colour to her wasted cheeks, a pause, and a response
that came forth faintly.
"Have you?"
"She said how dull it would be for us at home, and would not take a
denial. You will be able to go?"
"I go!" She glanced at him in surprise, and shook her head.
"Why not?"
"I am too ill."
Mr. Lake felt annoyed. The proposed expedition had been presenting
itself to his mind in a very agreeable light: for his wife to set her
face against it, whether on the plea of ill-health or any other plea,
would be especially provoking.
"My dear, I tell you what it is," he said in a voice that betrayed his
temper, "you will fancy yourself ill and lie-by and stay at home,
until it ends in your being ill."
"Do you think I am well?"
"You are not strong; but if you would rouse yourself, and go more out,
and shake off fancies, you would soon become so. An illness, such as
yours was in the autumn, leaves its weakening effects behind it as a
matter of course; but there's no sense in giving way to them."
"I go out sometimes."
"Just for a walk or so; that does little good. What you want is
cheerful society; change. You have not been once to Guild since we
came home."
"You make up for it, then; you are there often enough."
She could not help the retort; it seemed to slip from her tongue
unguided. Mr. Lake kicked out at a broken pot.
"Something or other is always happening to take me there. Mrs. Chester
loads me with commissions, and I don't like to refuse to execute
them."
They went in. Mr. Lake returned to the charge.
"You will go on Christmas-day, Clary, won't you? Penelope is preparing
for us."
"No; I am not well enough. And if I were, I should prefer to be at
home. Say no more," she added almost passionately interrupting what he
was about to urge. "You ought not to wish me to go there."
A long silence. "I shall go. I must. I can't get off it."
She did not speak.
"What is to be done, Clara? It will never do for me to spend
Christmas-day there, and you to spend it at home." And he finished the
clause by breaking out, half-singing, half muttering, with the lines
of a popular ditty that our childhood was familiar with--
"To-morrow is our wedding-day, and all the world would stare
If wife should dine at Edmonton, and I should dine at Ware."
She sat with her hands folded before her, and did not immediately
answer. If _he_ could not tell what was to be done, or what ought to
be done, she would not. Mr. Lake looked at her and waited.
"You must do as you think _right_," she said, laying a slight stress
upon the word. "I am too unwell to be anywhere but at home on
Christmas-day."
Mr. Lake left the room, whistling to hide his anger. Had he possessed
the worst wife in the world he had never reproached or quarrelled with
her. Some men _cannot_ be actively unkind to women, and he was one. He
thought her very obstinate, unreasonably so, and said to himself that
he would go to Guild. If Clara did not come to her senses beforehand
and accompany him, his going without her would bring her to them
after. Not another word was said between them; each seemed to avoid
the subject.
Christmas-day dawned, cloudy but tolerably fine. Mr. Lake was going to
Guild. Not doing exactly as he thought _right_, for his conscience was
giving him a sharp twinge or two, but following the bias of his
inclination, which urged him into the sunshine of my Lady Ellis's
smiles. Clara felt worse that morning, dreadfully weak and languid,
but she put on her things to attend church. Mr. Lake went with her,
and they sat out the service together. At its termination he rose to
quit the church; she remained.
"Shall you not be too tired with the long service, Clara?" he
whispered. "You had better leave it until another opportunity."
"Please don't! let me stay."
There was something in the pleading words--in the pleading up-turned
glance of the wan face, that struck upon him as being strange, leaving
a momentarily unpleasant impression. He never stayed the sacrament
himself, and went out.
She gathered herself into the corner of their high, broad,
old-fashioned pew, and knelt down, leaning her arms and head on the
seat. An intense weariness was upon her frame and spirit; she did not
feel things as keenly as she used--it was as if the world were
drifting away from her. Her soul was longing for the comfort of the
approaching rite--for its _comfort_. Ah, my friends, we kneel
periodically at the altar, and take the bread and wine, and hope that
we return comforted and refreshed. Believe me, it is but those from
whom the comfort of this world has utterly departed who can indeed
realize what that other comfort is, and how great our need of it. Only
when earth and its interests fail us, when the silver cord is loosed,
the golden bowl broken--in that hour do we desire the rest from
travail, as a yearning longing. That hour had come for Clara Lake: she
knelt there, feeling that earth had no longer a place for her,--the
home above was ready for her,--the Redeemer at hand to welcome her,
and take her to God.
She walked home quietly, a dim consciousness upon her that it might be
the last time she should partake of the sacrament here. It was not far
off two o'clock, and Mr. Lake was walking about, all impatience, for
his train started at five minutes past. She had thought he would be
gone.
"I waited for you, Clary. _Won't_ you come with me?"
"Indeed I cannot."
"Then it's a case of Johnny Gilpin."
With a farewell to his wife, full of paraded affection, Mr. Lake took
himself off to the station, telling his wife to be sure and eat a good
dinner and drink everybody's health in champagne, including his and
her own.
In spite of the inward peace that was hers, she was feeling terribly
dispirited. A fond thought had delusively whispered that, after all,
perhaps he might not go. She remembered the epoch of her dream; how he
had stayed at home then in tender consideration of her wishes. Things
were altered now.
At three o'clock she sat down to dinner, cutting herself a small slice
from the turkey placed before her. When the sauces were brought round
she simply shook her head. She had no appetite: an oppressive feeling
of bitter grief sat on her spirit; the tears dropped on her plate
silently, and she could not control them.
Presently she laid down her knife and fork, the little bit of meat
only half eaten. Elizabeth ventured to remonstrate.
"I can't swallow it; it is like dry chips in my throat."
"And no wonder, ma'am: the meat's dry by itself. And such delicious
bread-sauce and gravy that's here."
Sauce or no sauce, gravy or no gravy, Mrs. Lake could not eat. They
brought in the pudding. She cut it, eat a mouthful, and, sent it away
again.
Leaving her to her solitary dessert--for her a mere matter of
form--the servants sat down to their own dinner. Some short time
had elapsed, when Elizabeth thought she heard a noise in the
dining-parlour, and went in to see if her mistress wanted anything. A
cry of alarm burst from the girl as she opened the door: Mrs. Lake was
lying on the carpet.
Whether she had fainted--whether she had been crossing the room and
fell over anything--could not then be ascertained. As the servants
raised her, a thin stream of blood issued from her mouth. Nearly
beside themselves with terror, they laid her on the sofa, and
Elizabeth ran for the doctor. She had to pass Mr. Jupp's house, and on
her return it occurred to Elizabeth to call and ask to see Miss Jupp.
That young lady came out to her from the dining-room, her mouth full
of turkey.
"Good gracious!" she exclaimed, half petrified at the news. "Burst a
blood-vessel! Dying! Is any one with her besides Mr. Lake?"
"He is not with her--there's nobody with her," answered Elizabeth.
"That's why I made bold to disturb you, miss. He is gone off to dine
at Mrs. Chester's."
Catching up a garden hat and woollen shawl that hung close at hand,
Mary Jupp flung them on without a moment's pause for consideration,
and started at a gallop down the street. The worthy shopkeepers,
standing at their sitting-room windows, saw the transit with
amazement, and thought the eldest Miss Jupp had gone suddenly mad. She
was in the house before Dr. Marlow: his old steps were slow at the
best--hers fleet. Mrs. Lake had broken a vessel on the chest or lungs.
"There is no immediate danger, as I hope," said the old doctor in Miss
Jupp's ear; "but her husband ought to be here." Mary looked at her
watch, and found that she had just time to catch a train.
But that Mary Ann Jupp was a strong-minded female, she might not have
cared to go a journey on Christmas-day in the guise she presented. It
may be questioned if she as much as gave a thought to her attire,
except to remember that there was no time to go home and change
it. In addition to being strong-minded, she was also an exceedingly
upright-minded, right-feeling young woman, and had for a long while
past greatly condemned what was going on--the absurd intimacy between
Mr. Lake and Lady Ellis, and his consequent neglect of his wife. _Her_
eyes had been open to it if nobody else's had; and Mary Jupp, in her
impulsive way, had threatened herself that she should "one day have it
out with the lot." That day had come.
Very considerably astonished was Mr. Lake to find himself burst in
upon by Mary Jupp. Mrs. Chester and Lady Ellis looked up in amaze.
They had dined together, a family party, and Mrs. Chester's children,
with Anna and the two Clapperton girls, who were guests that day, had
retired to another room to make what noise they pleased, leaving the
trio round the comfortable fire, wine and good things on the table
behind them. Miss Jupp walked in without notice or ceremony. Her old
red woollen shawl had jagged ends and a slit; her brown hat, white
once, was vastly disreputable, and had a notch in the brim. Excited
and out of breath, having run all the way from Guild station, she
walked straight up to Mr. Lake and spoke. "Would you see your wife
before she dies?"
He had risen and stood in consternation. Mrs. Chester rose. _She_ sat
still, calmly equable, listening and looking. Mr. Lake's lips turned
white as he asked Miss Jupp for an explanation.
It was given in a sharp, ringing tone. Mrs. Lake had been found on the
floor in her solitary dining-room, and when they lifted her up blood
issued from her mouth. A vessel of some sort had given way. Dr. Marlow
was with her, and said that Mr. Lake ought to be found. "Will you go
to her?" asked the young lady as she finished her recital; "or shall I
go back and take word that you will not?"
"Why do you say that to me?" he asked with emotion.
"My dear Miss Jupp!" struck in Mrs. Chester, in a voice of
remonstrance.
"Why do I say it to you?" retorted Mary Jupp, in her storm of angry
indignation. "It is time some one said it to you. You have been
killing her by inches: yes, I speak to all of you," she added, turning
about upon them. "You have been killing his wife by inches: you,
Angeline Ellis, with your false and subtle snares; and you, Penelope
Chester, with your complacent winking at sin. He is weak and
foolish--look at him, as he stands there in his littleness!--but he
would scarcely have been wicked, had not you drawn him to it. You
wonder that I can thus speak out"--drowning some interrupted words of
Mrs. Chester's--"is it right for me to be silent, a hypocritical
glosser over of crime, when she is dying? I am an English gentlewoman,
with a gentlewoman's principles about me, and I hope some Christian
ones: it behoves such to speak out sometimes."
"You are mad," gasped Mrs. Chester.
"_You_ have been mad, to allow this conduct in your house--folly,
frivolity, much that is bad going on under your very eyes. Had your
brother been a single man, it might have been deemed excusable by
some: never by me: but he had a fair young wife, and you deliberately
set to work to injure her. You did, Penelope Chester: you knew quite
well what you were doing: and to encourage ill by winking at it, is
the same thing as committing it. I say nothing more to _you_," she
added, turning upon Lady Ellis with ineffable scorn. "You may remember
certain words you said to me regarding Mr. Lake and his wife, the
first afternoon you came here: I did not understand them then; I do
now; and I know that, in that first hour of your meeting, you were
laying your toils around him to gain his admiration and wean him from
his wife. If you retain a spark of feeling, of conscience, the
remembrance of Clara Lake, when the grave shall have closed on her,
will be as a sharp iron, ever eating into it."
Lady Ellis rose, her jet-black eyes flashing. "Who are you, that you
should dare thus insult me?"
Mary Jupp dropped her tone to one of calmness--mockingly calm it was,
considering the scorn that mingled with it. "I have told you who I am:
an English gentlewoman amidst gentlewomen: and with such I should
think you will never henceforth presume to consort."
Mr. Lake had made no further retort, good or bad. While they were
speaking, he took out his watch, saw that he had time, too much of it,
to catch the next train, and quitted the room. Mary Jupp was
following. Up started Mrs. Chester.
"If Clara is in the sad state you describe, Mary Jupp, I ought to go
to her."
Mary Jupp turned short round and faced them. "I do not pretend to any
right of control over your actions; but, were I you, I would at least
allow my brother to be alone with his wife in her last hours. You have
come between them enough, as it is, Mrs. Chester. The sight of you
cannot be pleasant to her."
She quitted the room, condescending to give no farewell to either of
those she left in it, and followed in the steps of Mr. Lake, who was
already on his way to the station, buttoning his coat as he went,
taking care not to catch him up. On the platform, as the train was
dashing in, he spoke to her.
"Your accusations have been harsh, Mary."
"What has your conduct been?" she sharply retorted. "I loved your
wife, and I feel her unhappy fate as keenly as though it had fallen on
one of my own sisters. The world may spare you; it may flatter and
caress you, for it is wonderfully tender to these venial sins of
conduct; but you cannot recall to life her whom you vowed before God to
love and to cherish."
"Step in. The train is going."
"Not into that carriage--with you. Others are in it, and I might be
saying things that they would stare at. My temper is up, today."
"First class, miss?" cried an impatient porter "There's only that
there one first-class carriage on."
And Mary Jupp walked away; opened the door of another, which was a
third-class, and took her seat in it.
Thus they reached Katterley. Mr. Lake came to the carriage to assist
her out, but she simply put his arm away. Her face looked awfully
severe as the gaslights fell upon it.
"One moment," he said, arresting her as she was passing. "I do not
know what turn your suspicions can have taken; a very free one, as it
seems to me. Let me assure you that you are mistaken. On my word of
honour as a man there has been nothing; nothing wrong. In justice to
Lady Ellis I am bound to say this."
"Justice to Lady Ellis! Don't talk to me about justice to Lady Ellis,"
was the young lady's retort. Her temper, as she said, was up, that
day. "Think of justice to your wife, rather. You are either a fool or
a knave, sir."
"Thank you, Miss Jupp."
"Nothing wrong!" she repeated, returning to the charge. "I don't know
what you mean. What do you call wrong? You have been tied to that
woman's skirts these five months; lavishing your money and your time
upon her; and leaving your wife alone to die. If that's not wrong, I
should like to know what is."
He made no reply; almost too confounded to do it.
"I don't blame you, Robert Lake, as much as I blame them," she took
occasion to say as they were parting. "You are a vain, thoughtless,
empty-headed fellow, made so, I believe, by your enforced idleness;
and they, those two women, are old and crafty. Mrs. Chester was
serving her self-interest; the other her unjustifiable woman's vanity.
You yielded yourself a willing prisoner to the birdlime spread under
your feet, and now your folly has come home with interest. _I_ saw
your wife was dying of the pain, if you did not."
Without another word, whether of adieu or apology, she brushed past
him up the street; and Mr. Lake turned to his home, something like a
beaten dog that dare not lift its tail from between its legs.
CHAPTER XI.
The Dream worked out.
Mrs. Lake was better. The bleeding was stopped, the doctor gone, and
she seemed comfortable. There was less danger than Miss Jupp had
supposed, for the blood-vessel which had broken proved to be only a
small one on the chest--not the lungs. To her husband it appeared
incomprehensible that she should be in any danger at all: his mind had
never admitted the possibility of it.
He was all alive to it now. As long as she lay in bed he scarcely left
her chamber. To talk with her much was not allowed, but he sat there,
holding her hand, looking into her eyes with the old love in his. What
his reflections were, or how great his self-reproaches, was best known
to himself. When these men, essentially kind and tender by nature,
have to indulge in such remorse, be assured it is not very light. He
could not bring himself to believe that any conduct of his had
contributed to his wife's illness; still less that he had caused it.
That was a flight of fancy not easy to him to understand; but he saw
now how ill she must have been all along, and bitterly regretted that
he had left her so much alone. Rather than have _wilfully_ ill-treated
her, he would have forfeited his life. His love had come back to him,
now that it was too late--it may be more appropriate to say his senses
had come back to him.
In a day or two she grew so much better that she was allowed to leave
her bed for a small sitting-room on the same floor, carried into it by
him. Late in the afternoon, he left her comfortably lying back in the
easy chair, and inclined to sleep. Taking his hat, he walked out.
His errand was to the doctor. His wife seemed to assume that she
should not recover; Miss Jupp and the servants the same; for all he
saw, she might be well in a week or two: and he went to put the
question. Dr. Marlow had said nothing particular to him of her state,
one way or the other, and he could not question him before his wife.
Dr. Marlow was at home, and came to him at once. The two families had
been very intimate; on familiar terms one with the other. Mr. Lake
plunged into the matter at once, speaking of the danger other people
seemed to apprehend, and of his own inability to see it.
"Is she, or is she not, in peril?" he asked. "Tell me the plain
truth."
The old man laid his hand upon the speaker's shoulder. "What if the
truth should be painful? Will you hear it--the whole of it?"
"I am come to hear it."
"Then I can only tell you that she is in danger; and I fear that a
little time will see the end."
Very rapidly beat his pulses as he listened. Repentant pulses. A whole
lifetime of repentance seemed, in that moment, to be in every one of
them.
"But what is killing her? What is it?"
"The primary cause is of course that cold she caught at Guild. It laid
hold of her system. Still, I think she might have rallied: many a
time, since she came home, I have deemed her all but well again. You
ought to know best, Master Robert, but to me it appears as though she
had some grievance on her mind, and that it has been working mischief.
I hope you have been a good husband to her, as Joan says to Hodge,"
added the doctor, turning from Mr. Lake to take a pinch of snuff.
"Your wife has possessed one of those highly sensitive, rarely-refined
temperaments, that, when joined to a fragile body, an unkind blow
would shatter. I once told you this."
He made no comment; he was battling with his pain. Dr. Marlow
continued.
"The body was a healthy body; there was no inherent disease, as I have
always believed, and I cannot see why it should not have recovered;
but the mind seemed to pull it back; two powers, one working against
the other. Between them they have conquered, and will lay her low."
"Do you call it consumption?" Mr. Lake jerked out. And really the
words were jerked out, rather than fairly spoken.
"Decidedly not. More of a decline: a waste of the system."
"Those declines are cured sometimes."
"Not often: when they fairly set in."
"Oh, doctor," he cried, clasping the old man's hand, and giving vent
to some of the anguish that was rending him, "try and save her! Save
her for my sake! You don't know the cause I have to ask it."
"I wish I could--for both your sakes. She is beyond earthly aid."
They stood looking at each other. Dr. Marlow, willing if possible to
soothe in a degree the blow, resumed.
"I suppose I must, after all, have been mistaken in her constitution.
When consumption showed itself in her brother, and he died of it, I
watched her all the closer. But I could detect nothing wrong: though
she was always one of those blossoms that a sharp wind would blow
away. The disease was there, we must assume, and I failed to detect
it."
"You say--you said but now--that it is not consumption," returned Mr.
Lake, speaking sharply in his pain.
"Neither is it. But when unsoundness is inherent in the constitution
it does not always show itself in the same form. Sometimes it comes
out in one shape, sometimes in another."
There was no more to be said; nothing further to be learnt. Mr. Lake
returned home with his burden of knowledge, wondering how much of this
dread fiat Clara suspected, how much not. The shades of evening were
on the room when he entered it, imparting to it a semi-gloom, but the
rays of the fire-light fell on his wife's wasted face. Stirring the
coals into a bright blaze, he sat down by her chair, and took her hand.
Her wasted fingers entwined themselves fondly with his.
"I know where you have been, Robert. And I guess for what purpose."
"Ah. You are wise, my little wife. I went out to get a breath of fresh
air."
"You have been to Dr. Marlow's. Margaret Jupp called, and she said she
saw you turn into his house. You went to ask him whether I should get
well. He told you No: for he knows I shall not. Was it not so?"
She leaned a little forward to look at him. He suddenly clasped her to
his breast with a gush of passionate tenderness, and his hot tears
fell upon her face.
"Oh, my darling! my darling!"
"It must be," she softly whispered. "There is no appeal against it
now."
"Clara, if we are indeed to part, at least let perfect confidence be
restored between us," he resumed, controlling his emotion with an
effort. "What is the trouble that has been upon you?"
"The trouble?"
"Some of them are hinting at such a thing," he said, thinking of the
doctor and of Miss Jupp: "I must know from you what it is."
"Need you ask?"
"Yes. For I cannot comprehend it. My darling, you must tell me."
"If _she_ had never come between us, I do not think I should have been
ill now."
"I _cannot_ understand it," he repeated, a wailing sound in his
emphasized words. "I have been foolish, thoughtless, wrong: though not
to the extent you may possibly have imagined. But surely, taking it at
its worst, that was not cause sufficient to bring you to death."
"Your love left me for another. It seemed to me--it seemed to me--more
than I could bear."
Partly from the agitation the topic called up, partly that she was in
hesitation how to frame her words, the pauses came. It was as if she
would fain have said more.
"My love? oh no. It was but a passing--" the word at his tongue's end
was "fancy," but he substituted another--"folly. Clara! do not give me
more than my share of blame; that will be heavy enough, Heaven knows.
The old man says that the violent cold you caught at Guild, was the
primary cause of decay: surely that cannot be charged upon me."
She was silent a few moments--but, as he had said, there ought to be
full confidence between them now--and she had been longing to tell him
the whole unreserved truth; a longing that had grown into a sick
yearning.
"I will tell you now how I caught that cold. Do you remember the
night?"
"Not particularly." He was of a forgetful nature, and the events of
the night had only been those of many another.
"_Don't_ you remember it? When you were walking with--her--in the
shrubbery in the raw twilight.--"
Mr. Lake slightly shook his head in the pause she made. Twilight
shrubbery walks were lying in numbers on his conscience.
"She complained of cold, and you went to get her shawl out of the
summer-house, leaving her seated on the bench in front of the green
alcove. She sang a song to herself: I think I could repeat its words
now. You brought the shawl and folded it lovingly around her, and
kissed her afterwards, and called her--"
In great astonishment he raised his wife's face to gaze into it. Where
had she learnt that little episode? Had she dreamt it? He did not ask:
he only stared at her.
She bent down her head again to its resting-place, and folded her arm
round him in token of forgiveness. "And called her '_My dearest_.' I
was standing there, Robert, behind the bench. I saw and heard all."
Not a word spoke he. He hardly dared to accept the loving sign of
pardon, or to press her to him. Had she glanced up she would have seen
his face in a hot glow. These little private episodes may be very
gratifying in the passing, but it is uncommonly disagreeable to find
out that your wife has made a third at them.
"It was very thoughtless of me to run out from the heated room on that
cold damp night without anything on," she resumed hastily, as if
conscious of the feeling and wishing to cover it "But oh! I was so
unhappy--scarcely, I think, in my senses. I thought you had not
returned from Guild: Fanny came in and said you had been home a long
while and were with her. An impulse took me that I would go and see: I
never did such a thing in my life; never, never, before or since: and
I opened the glass doors and went out. I was half way down the
shrubbery when I heard you coming into it from a cross walk, and I
darted into the green alcove, and stood back to hide myself; not to
spy upon you."
She paused, but was not interrupted. Mrs. Lake began to hurry over her
tale.
"So you see that, in a measure, she was the cause of the cold which
struck to me. And then I was laid up; and many a time when you deemed
I should fancy you were out shooting, or had gone to Guild, or
something or other, you were with her. I knew it all. And since we
came home, you have been ever restless to go to her--leaving me
alone--even on Christmas-day."
Ay: even on Christmas-day. He almost gnashed his teeth, in his
self-condemnation. She, with her impassioned and entire love for him,
with her rare and peculiar temperament that, as the doctor had
observed, a rude blow would destroy! The misery of mind reacting upon
a wasted frame! He no longer wondered why she was dying.
"Why could you not speak out and tell me this?"
"But that the world seems to have nearly passed away from me, and that
earthly passions--pride, self-reticence, shame, I mean the shame of
betraying one's dearest feelings, are over--I could not tell you now."
"But don't you see the bed of remorse you have made for me? Had I
suspected the one quarter of what you tell me you felt, the woman
might have gone to the uttermost ends of the earth, for me. I wish you
had spoken."
"It might not have prevented it. My belief is that it would not. It
was to be."
Mr. Lake looked at her.
"You remember the dream: how it shadowed forth that I was to meet, in
some way, my death through going to Mrs. Chester's."
"Child! Can you still dwell upon that dream?"
"Yes. And so will you when the hearse comes here to take me away.
Never was a dream more completely worked out. Not quite yet: it will
be shortly. I have something else to tell you; about it and her."
Mr. Lake passed his hand across his brow. It seemed to him that he had
heard enough already.
"The very first moment, when I met Lady Ellis at your sister's, her
eyes puzzled me: those strange, jet-black eyes. I could not think
where I had seen them. They seemed to be familiar to my memory, and I
thought and thought in vain, even when the weeks went on. On this same
night that we are speaking of, I alarmed you by my looks. Mrs. Chester
happened to look at me as I sat by the fire; she called out; and you,
who were at chess with--with her, came up. You all came round me. I
was shaking, and my cheeks were scarlet, somebody exclaimed: I believe
you thought I was seized with an ague-fit. Robert, I was shaking with
fear, with undefined dread: for an instant before, as I sat looking at
her eyes, it flashed into my mind whose eyes they were."
"Well, whose?" he asked, for she paused.
"They were those of the man who drove the hearse in my dream," she
whispered in an awestruck tone. "The very same. You must recollect my
describing them to you when I awoke: 'strangely black eyes, the
blackest eyes I ever saw,' though of his face I retained no
impression. It was singular it should have struck upon me then, when I
had been for weeks trying unsuccessfully to get the thread of the
mystery."
"Oh Clara, my darling, these superstitious feelings are very sad!" he
remonstrated. "You ought not to indulge them."
"Will you tell me how I could have avoided them? It was not my fault
that the dream came to me: or that the eyes of the driver were _her_
eyes: or that my death had been induced through going to Mrs.
Chester's. Both you and Mrs. Chester seemed to help me on to it in my
dream: and as surely as the man appeared to drive me to the grave in
the hearse, so has she driven me to it in reality. I wrote out the
dream in full at the time, and you will find the paper in my desk.
Read it over when I am gone, and reflect how completely it has been
fulfilled."
He was silent. A nasty feeling of superstition was beginning to creep
over himself.
"Will you let me ask you something?" she whispered, presently.
He bent his tearful face down upon hers. "Ask me anything."
"When--I--am--no longer here, shall you marry her?"
Robert Lake darted up with a tremendous word, almost flinging his
wife's face from him. His anger bubbled over for a few moments: not at
his wife's question, but at the idea it suggested. For remorse was
very strong upon him then; the image of Lady Ellis in consequence
distasteful.
"Mary _her!_ Her! I would rather take a pistol, and shoot myself
through the heart--and--sin that it implies--I assert it before my
Maker."
Clara gave utterance to a faint sigh of relief, and unclasped her
arms. "Then you do not love her as you have loved me?"
He flung himself on his knees before her, and sobbed aloud in his
repentant anguish. She leaned over him endearingly, stroking his face
and his hair.
"I only wanted to know that. The misery is over now, darling. For the
little while we have to be together, let us be as happy as we used to
be."
Emotion shook him to the very centre as he listened. Scarcely twice in
a lifetime can a man give way to such. For the little while they had
to be together! Ay. As Mary Jupp had said, he could not recall her back
to life: he could not keep her here to make reparation.
Mrs. Lake lay back in her chair exhausted. Her husband stood by the
mantelpiece gazing at her with his yearning eyes, hot and feverish
after their tears. Silence had succeeded to the interview of
agitation: these strong emotional storms always bring their reaction.
A knock at the room door, followed by the entrance of Elizabeth. She
came to say that Mrs. Chester was below, asking if she might come up.
A moment's pause, and Mrs. Lake answered "yes." The impulse to deny it
had been upon her, but she wished to be at peace with all the world.
Mr. Lake, less forgiving than his wife, did not care to meet Mrs.
Chester, and quitted the room to avoid her. In his propensity to blame
somebody else for the past as well as himself, he felt very much
inclined to curse Mrs. Chester.
But she had been very quick, and encountered him outside the door,
inquiring after his wife in a whisper. Mr. Lake muttered some
unintelligible answer, and passed on.
"There's a friend in the drawing-room waiting to see you, Robert," she
called after him.
Now, strange though it may seem, the thought of who the "friend"
really was, did not occur to Mr. Lake. After the explosion of
Christmas-day, brought about by Miss Jupp, he had never supposed that
Lady Ellis would show herself at his house. He went downstairs
mechanically, expecting to see nobody in particular; some acquaintance
might have called. In another moment he stood face to face with
her--Angeline Ellis. The exceeding unfitness of her visit, the bad
taste which it displayed after that public explosion, struck him with
dismay. Perhaps the recent explanation with his wife, their
reconciliation, and his own bitter repentance helped the feeling. He
bit his angry lips.
She extended to him her delicately-gloved hand, lavender, sewn with
black, and melted into her sweetest smile. But the smiles had lost
their power. He glanced at her coal-black eyes, as they flashed
in the rays of the lamp, remembered the eyes of his wife's dream,
and--shuddered.
"You have become a stranger to Guild," she said. "Has that mad woman,
Mary Jupp, persuaded you that you will be poisoned if you come?"
He did not choose to see her proffered hand "I can no longer spare
time from my wife, Lady Ellis: I have spared too much from her."
The resentful tone struck her with wonder; the cold manner chilled her
unpleasantly: but she smiled yet.
"Is it really true that your wife is so very ill?" she asked. "The
maid says so. We had news that she was better, recovering fast; and of
course treated Miss Jupp's assertion for what it was worth--as we did
the rest she said."
Had he been covered with quills like a porcupine every one of them
would have bristled up on end in defence of his wife. Surely her
ladyship should have exercised better judgment an' she wished to win
him back to her.
Never again! Never again!
"She is dying," he hoarsely answered; "dying through our folly. I beg
your pardon, my lady," he added, speaking the two last words in, as it
struck her, the refinement of mockery, "it had been better perhaps
that I had said my folly."
"Folly? Oh!"
"It has been a folly that will entail upon me a lifetime of
repentance. Were my whole days to be spent in striving to work it off,
as we work off a debt, they could not make atonement. There are
follies that leave their results behind them--a heavy burthen to be
borne afterwards throughout life. Take a seat, I beg, while you wait
for Mrs. Chester."
He quitted the room; and she compressed her thin lips, which had
turned white, for she fully understood him to imply that he had
quitted herself and the "folly" for ever. Rarely had her ears heard
such truths spoken, and they set on to glow with resentment. She saw
Mr. Lake walk out at the garden gate and up the road, all to avoid
her. Why? She had committed no wrong--as she counted wrong, as the
world counts it: never a woman less likely to commit that than Lady
Ellis. She had but amused herself, and he the same; and she really
could not understand why Mrs. Lake should make a fuss over it.
Mrs. Chester, meanwhile, seated with Clara, was in her most amiable
mood. That the episode of Christmas-day had taken her aback far more
than it had taken Lady Ellis, was indisputable; but she was one of
those easy-going women who never retain unpleasant impressions long.
Besides, she had her way to make in the world. Before Mr. Lake had
left her house many minutes, Miss Jupp in his wake, she had recovered
her equanimity, and was laughing over the matter with my lady,
assuring her that Mary Jupp was taken with these fits sometimes, and
tried to set the world to-rights--the result of bile. Anything rather
than that Lady Ellis should quit her now, in the depth of winter. They
had come over today, my lady fully understanding and tacitly falling
into her plans, hoping to patch up a reconciliation. He was but a
light-headed fellow at best--turned about any way, as the wind turns a
feather, mentally argued Mrs. Chester; and he was safe not to have
said anything to his wife.
"You are looking so very much better than I expected, dear Clara. All
you want is complete rest, with good nursing; as I remarked to Anna
Chester the day after Christmas-day, when she came over to inquire
about you. I was glad you saw her. I couldn't come myself--I had one
of my wretched sick-headaches."
She spoke quickly, running one sentence into another. Clara sat back
in her chair, meek, quiet, calm, a smile of peace upon her face.
"I should not have asked your husband to dine with us that day without
you," spoke Mrs. Chester, deliberating how to heal breaches--"we
should never have cared to see him at any time unaccompanied by you,
but that you were not able to come."
Mrs. Lake made no reply.
"Clara, I must speak out. There's poor Lady Ellis downstairs wanting
to see you. She says she has talked and laughed with Mr. Lake, and is
terribly afraid now that you might not have liked it. She meant
nothing. He is ten years younger than she is. Goodness me, child! you
could never have thought ill of it. Surely you will see her?"
"I could not talk with her about--about the past," murmured poor
Clara, the hectic cheeks becoming crimson.
"Good gracious me! who said anything of talking about it with her?"
exclaimed Mrs. Chester. "My dear Clara, she'd not speak of it for the
world. She has not spoken of it to me; but I can see what she feels.
She's so afraid you should reproach her in your heart; she would so
like to be reconciled in spirit. Oh! my dear, there's nothing like
peace."
With the peace on her own spirit; with the fresh love of her husband
in her heart; with the consciousness that she should soon be with Him
who has enjoined love and peace on earth if we would inherit Heaven,
Clara did not hesitate. Lady Ellis could do her no harm with her
husband now: and a sudden wish for at least a tacit proof of the full
forgiveness she accorded, arose within her. But she did not speak
immediately; and Mrs. Chester was impatient.
"You would not bear malice, Clara?"
"I will see Lady Ellis. As to bearing malice, if you only knew how
different it is! All that kind of feeling has passed away from me. I
wish you would note what I say now, Mrs. Chester, and--and repeat it,
should you think it might be acceptable after I am dead. Should
anybody in the world have injured me, intentionally or unintentionally,
I give them my free and full forgiveness, as I hope to be myself
forgiven. I trust we shall meet in Heaven; you, and I, and Lady Ellis,
and all the world, and live together in happy bliss for ever. There's
a great joy upon me when I say this."
The words were a little different from any anticipated by Mrs.
Chester. She rubbed her face with her handkerchief and stared; and her
tone, as she rejoined, partook in a degree of the solemnity of that
other one.
"After you are dead, Clara! You are not surely going to die?"
Mrs. Lake did not answer in words. She looked full at Mrs. Chester
with her clear brown eyes, and the wan face from which the hectic was
fading.
"Good patience me!" thought that lady, "I hope I shan't dream of her
as she looks now."
Elizabeth entered with a cup of tea on a waiter. "Here comes my tea,"
said Clara. "Would you like some?"
"Indeed I should: my mouth is quite parched. And poor Lady Ellis? You
will let her drink one, too, here with us, Clara? It will be the seal
of peace."
"Bring two cups of tea and some bread and butter," said Clara to the
maid in a low tone. Certainly she had not intended to invite the lady
downstairs to tea with her; but Mrs. Chester had put it in a point of
view scarcely rejectable.
Now Mrs. Chester, crafty and clever, had been drawing largely upon her
own active imagination. It had never occurred to Lady Ellis to wish
for the kiss of peace, or for any token of reconciliation whatsoever.
Therefore when Mrs. Chester brought her up and introduced her to the
room, the two--her ladyship and the dying woman--were inwardly at
cross purposes.
Nothing of which was betrayed, or likely to be. Lady Ellis's
delicately-gloved hand met that attenuated one in a moment's greeting,
and she sat down with calm composure. A few remarks passed upon
indifferent topics between the three, and Elizabeth came in with the
tea. The next moment another visitor appeared on the scene--Mary Jupp,
shown in by Mr. Lake. To describe their faces of astonishment at
seeing the ladies there, would take the pen of a great artist in
words. Not seeing Lady Ellis downstairs, he thought they had left.
Miss Jupp stood with a stony stare; and her companion bit his annoyed
lips.
"Come in, Mary; come in."
Mrs. Lake's invitation bore a hurried pleading sound to Miss Jupp's
ear, as if she had been uneasy in her company, and welcomed the
relief. But for that, the strong-minded lady had turned away again
without leaving behind her so much as a word. She came forward and sat
down.
"Elizabeth shall bring you some tea."
"Tea for me!" cried Miss Jupp, bluntly. "I couldn't drink a drop. It
would choke me."
"Is your throat bad, Mary Jupp?" asked Mrs. Chester.
"No; only my temper."
A frightened look in Clara's eyes, a pleading gaze that went right
into Mary Jupp's. The young lady, doing violence to her inclinations,
shut up her month resolutely, and folded her hands upon her lap, and
spoke not another word, good, bad, or indifferent.
The curious meeting came to an end, brought to a summary close by Mrs.
Chester. That lady, not altogether liking the aspect of affairs, and
privately wishing Miss Jupp at the antipodes, thought it good to take
herself away, and leave, so to say, well alone. Lady Ellis and Clara
Lake shook hands for the last time in life.
"I wish you well," Clara whispered.
"Thanks," airily answered my lady.
Mr. Lake, in the very commonest politeness, went down with them. As
they stood in the garden Mrs. Chester went back to get her muff, and
they waited for her.
"Are you reconciled to me, Mr. Lake?" asked Lady Ellis.
"I wish to beg your pardon for aught I may have said that was
unwarrantable," he rejoined. "I had no right to reproach you when the
fault of the past was mine."
Mrs. Chester came forth, and he held the gate open for them. But my
lady noticed that he did not choose to see her hand when she held it
out.
My lady gave a little toss to her head. If this was to be the end of
platonic friendships, keep her from them in future.
And Robert Lake, a whole world of self-condemning bitterness in his
face, leaned on the gate, and looked after them.
PART THE SECOND.
CHAPTER XII.
Coastdown.
Rushing through the streets of London, as if he were rushing for his
life, went a gentleman in deep mourning. It was Robert Hunter. Very
soon after we last saw her, he had followed the hearse that conveyed
his wife to her long home in Katterley churchyard.
Putting aside his grief, his regret, his bitter repentance, her death
made every difference to him. Had there been a child, the house and
income would have remained his; being none, it all went from him. Of
his own money but little remained: he had been extravagant during the
brief period when he was Lieutenant Hunter, had spent right and left.
One does not do these things without having to pay for it. Mrs.
Chester, going over to offer a condoling visit, heard this, and spoke
out her opinion with her usual want of reserve. She looked upon him as
a man lost. "No," said he, "I am _saved!_ I shall go to work now."
"Hoping to redeem fortune?" she rejoined. "Yes," he said, "and
something else besides."
Heavily lay the shadow of the past upon Robert Hunter. The drooping
form of his loving and neglected wife, bright with hope once,
mouldering in her grave now, was in his mind always; the years that he
had wasted in frivolity, the money he had recklessly spent. Oh, the
simpleton he was--as he thought now, looking back in his repentance.
When he had become master of a good profession, why did he abandon it
because a little money was left him? To become a gentleman amongst
gentlemen, forsooth; to put away the soiling of his hands; to live a
life of vanity and indolence. Heaven had recompensed him in its own
just way: whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap. His soldiership
was gone; his wife was gone; money, the greater portion of it, was
gone. Nothing left to him but remembrance, and the ever-present,
bitter sense of his folly. He was beginning life anew: he must go back
to the bottom of the tree of his engineering profession, lower than
where he had left off: he would so begin it and take up his work
daily, and untiringly persevere in it, so as--Heaven helping him--to
atone for the past. Not all the past. The wasted years were gone for
ever; the gentle wife, whom he had surely helped to send to the grave,
could not be recalled to earth. Not so much on his wife were his
musings bent as on the career of work lying before him. He had so
grieved for her in the days before and immediately after her death,
that it seemed as though the sorrow had, in a degree, spent itself,
and reaction set in. If his handicraft's best skill, indifference to
privation, unflagging industry, could redeem the past idleness, he
would surely redeem that. Not in a pecuniary point of view, it was not
of that he thought, but in the far graver one of wasted life. His eyes
were opening a little; he saw how offensive on High must be a life of
mere idle indulgence; a waste of that precious time, short at the
best, bestowed upon him to use. This, this was what he had resolved to
atone for: Heaven helping him, he once more aspirated in the sad but
resolute earnestness of his heart.
Making an end of his affairs at Katterley, he came to London,
presented himself at the office of the firm where he was formerly
employed, and said he had come to ask for work. They remembered the
clever, active, industrious young man, and were glad to have him
again. And Robert Hunter--dropping his easy life, just as he dropped
the name he had borne in it--entered on his career of toil and
usefulness.
The spring was growing late when his employers intimated to him that
he was going to be sent to Spain, to superintend some work there.
Anywhere, he answered; he was quite ready, let them send him where
they would.
On this morning that we see him splashing through the mud of London
improvised by the water carts, he was busy making his preparations for
departure, and was on his way to call on Professor Macpherson. He
wanted some information in regard to the locality for which he was
bound, and thought the professor could supply it. The previous night,
sitting alone in his lodgings, he had been surprised, and rather
annoyed, by the appearance of Mrs. Chester. That lady was in town on
her own business, and found him out. Incautiously he let slip that he
was going on the morrow to Dr. Macpherson's. She seized upon the
occasion to make a visit also.
At this very moment Mrs. Chester was en route also. Pushing her way
along, inquiring her road perpetually, getting into all sorts of odd
nooks and turnings, she at length emerged on the more open squares of
Bloomsbury, and there she saw her brother, who had been calling at
places on his way, in front of her.
"You might have waited for me, Robert, I think."
"I did wait twenty minutes. I came on then. My time is not my own, you
know, Penelope."
"Have you seen anything of Lady Ellis since you came to London?"
inquired Mrs. Chester, as they walked on together.
"No, I should not be likely to see her."
"She is staying in London; she came to it direct when she left me. At
least, she was staying here, but in a letter I had from her she said
she thought of going on a visit to Coastdown. Her plans----"
"Excuse me, Penelope, I don't care to hear of Lady Ellis's plans."
"You have grown quite a bear, Robert! That's what work's doing for
you."
He laughed pleasantly. "I think it is hurry that is doing it for me
this morning, I feel as if I had no time for anything. Number fifteen.
Here we are!"
It was a commodious house, this one in Bloomsbury, steps leading up to
the entrance. He sent in his card, "Mr. Robert Hunter," and they were
admitted.
"Lawk a' mercy! Is it you?" exclaimed Mrs. Macpherson, looking first
at the card and then at its owner, as they were shown into a handsome
room, and the professor's lady, in sky-blue silk, and a scarlet
Garibaldi body elaborately braided with black, advanced to receive
them. She did not wear the bird-of-paradise feather, but she wore
something equivalent to it: some people might call it a cap and some a
turban, the front ornament of which, perching on the forehead, was an
artificial bird, with shining wings of green and gold.
Mrs. Macpherson took a hand of each, shaking them heartily. "And so
you have put away your name?" she said.
"Strictly speaking, it never was my name," he answered. "It was my
wife's. I had to assume it with her property, but when the property
left me again, I thought it time to drop the name."
The professor came forward in his threadbare coat, with (it must be
owned) a great stream of some sticky red liquid down the front of it,
for they had fetched him from his experimenting laboratory. But his
smile was bright, his welcome genial. Mrs. Macpherson, whose first
thoughts were always of hospitality, ordered luncheon to be got ready.
Robert Hunter, sitting down between them, quietly told them he had
become a working man again, and where he was going, and what to do.
Mrs. Macpherson heard him with a world of sympathy.
"It's just one o' them crosses in life that come to a many of us,"
remarked she. "Play first and work afterwards! it's out o' the order
of things. But take heart. You've got your youth yet, and you'll grow
reconciled."
"If you only knew how glad I am to be at work again!" he said, a faint
light of earnestness crossing his face. "My years of idleness follow
me as a reproach--as a waste of life."
"But for steady attention to my work and studies, I should never have
been able to contribute my poor mite to further the cause of science,"
said the professor, meekly, speaking it as an encouragement to Robert
Hunter.
"If he hadn't stuck at it late and early--burning the candle at both
ends, as 'twere--he'd not have had his ologies at his fingers' tips,"
pursued Mrs. Macpherson, who often deemed it necessary to explain more
lucidly her husband's meaning.
"And so you are about to migrate to Spain?" said the professor.
"You----"
"He says he's going off to it by rail," interposed Mrs. Macpherson.
"What are the people there? Blacks?"
"No, no, Betsy; they are white, as we are."
"I knew a Spanish man once, professor, and he was olive brown."
"They are dark from the effects of the sun. I thought you alluded to
the race. The radiation of heat there is excessive; and----"
"That is, it's burning hot in the place," corrected Mrs. Macpherson.
"I wish you joy of it, Mr. Hunter. You'll catch it full, a-laying down
of your lines of rail."
"I think you have been in Spain?" observed Mr. Hunter to the doctor.
"I once stayed some months there. What do you say?--that you want some
information that you think I can supply? I hope I can. What is it?
Please to step into my room."
The professor passed out of the door by which he entered, Mr. Hunter
following him. A short passage, and then they were in the square back
room consecrated to the professor and his pursuits. It was not a
museum, it was not a laboratory, it was not a library, or an aviary of
stuffed birds, or an astronomical observatory; but it was something of
all. Specimens of earth, of rock, of flowers, of plants, of weeds, of
antiquarian walls; of animals, birds, fish, insects; books in cases,
owls in cages; and a vast many more odd things too numerous to
mention. Mrs. Macpherson thought it well to follow them.
"Law!" said she to Mrs. Chester, "did living mortal ever see the like
o' the place?"
"What a confused mass of things it is!" was the answer, as Mrs.
Chester's eyes went roving around in curiosity.
"_He_ says it isn't. He has the face to tell me everything is in its
place, and he could find it in the dark. The great beast there with
its round eyes, is a owl that some of 'em caught and killed when they
went out moralizing into Herefordshire."
"Not moralizing, Betsy. One of the excursions of the Geological
Society----"
"It's all the same," interrupted Mrs. Macpherson; and the professor
meekly turned to Mr. Hunter and continued an explanation he was giving
him, a sort of earthenware pipe in his hand. The ladies drew near.
"You perceive, Mr. Hunter, there is a small aperture for the passing
in of the atmospheric air?"
"That is, there's a hole where the wind goes out," explained the
professor's wife.
"By these means, taking the precautions I have previously shown you,
the pressure on the valve may be increased to almost any given extent!
As a natural consequence----"
"Oh, bother consequences!" cried Mrs. Macpherson; "I'm sure young
Robert Hunter don't care to waste his time with that rubbish, when
there's cold beef and pickled salmon waiting."
"Just two minutes, Betsy, and Mr. Hunter shall be with you. Perhaps
you and Mrs. Chester will oblige us by going on."
"Not if I know it," said the lady, resolutely. "I've had experience of
your 'two minutes' before today, prefessor, and seen 'em swell into
two mortal hours. Come! finish what you've got to say to him, and
we'll all go together."
Dr. Macpherson continued his explanations in a low voice, possibly to
avoid more interruptions. Five minutes or so, and they moved from the
table, the doctor still talking in answer to a question.
"Not yet. I grieve to say we have not any certain clue to it, and
opinions are much divided among us. It needs these checks to remind us
of our finite nature, Mr. Hunter. So far shalt thou go, but no
farther. That is a law of the Divine Creator, and we cannot break it."
Robert Hunter smiled. "The strangest thing of all is to hear one of
you learned men acknowledge as much. The philosopher's stone;
perpetual motion; the advancing and receding tides--do you not live in
expectation of making the secret of these marvels yours?"
Professor Macpherson shook his head. "If we were permitted: but we
never shall be. _If_. That word has been the arresting point of man in
the past ages, as it will be in the future. Archimedes said he could
move the world, you know, if he had but an outward spot to rest the
fulcrum of his lever on."
"It's a lucky thing for us that Archimy didn't," was the comment of
Mrs. Macpherson. "It wouldn't be pleasant to be swayed about
promiscous, the earth tossing like a ship at sea."
Robert Hunter declined the luncheon; he had many things to do still,
and his time in England was growing very short; so he said adieu to
them both then, and to his sister.
"Now remember, Robert Hunter," said Mrs. Macpherson, taking both his
hands, "when you visit England temporay, and want a friendly bed to
put yourself into, come to us. Me and the prefessor took to you when
we first saw you at Guild. You remember that night," she added,
turning to Mrs. Chester: "we come up in a carriage and pair; I wore my
orange brocade and my bird-o'-paradise; and there was a Lady Somebody
there, one o' those folks that put on airs and graces; which isn't
pretty in a my lady, any more than it is in a missis. You took our
fancies, Mr. Hunter--though it does seem odd to be calling you that,
and not Lake--and we'll look upon it as a favour if you'll come to us
sometimes. The prefessor knows we shall, but he's never cute at
compliments. He was born without gumption."
The professor's lingering shake of the hand, the welcoming look in his
kindly eyes, said at least as much as his wife's words; and Robert
Hunter went forth, knowing that they wished to be his friends.
So they sat down to their luncheon and he departed; and the same night
went forth on his travels.
Coastdown lay low in the light of the morning sun. The skies were
clear, the rippling sea was gay with its fishing boats. Spring had
been very late that year, but this was a day warm and bright. The
birds were singing, the lambs were sporting in the fields, the hedges
were bursting into buds of green.
Swinging through the gate of the Red Court Farm, having been making a
call there to fetch a newspaper, came Captain Copp: a sailor with a
wooden leg, a pea jacket, and a black glazed hat. Captain Copp had
been a merchant captain of the better class, as his father was before
him. After his misfortune--the loss of his leg in an encounter with
pirates--he gave up the sea, and settled at Coastdown on his small but
sufficient income.
The captain's womenkind--as he was in the habit of calling the inmates
of his house--consisted of his wife and a maid servant. The former was
meek, yielding, gentle as those gentle lambs in the field; the latter,
Sarah Ford, worth her weight in gold for honest capability, liked to
manage the captain and the world on occasions. There were encounters
between them. He was apt to call her a she-pirate and other
affectionate names. She openly avowed her disbelief in his marvellous
reminiscences, especially one that was a standing story with him
concerning a sea-serpent that he saw with his own eyes in the Pacific
Ocean. He had also seen a mermaid. Like many another sailor, the
captain was a simple-minded man in land affairs, only great at sea and
its surroundings; with implicit faith in all its marvels.
On occasions the captain's mother honoured him with a visit; a
resolute, well-to-do lady, who used to voyage with her husband, and
had now settled in Liverpool. When she came she ruled the house and
the captain, for she thought him (forty, now) and his wife little
better than children yet. In solid sense, if you believed herself,
nobody could approach her.
Captain Copp came forth from his call at the Red Court Farm, letting
the gate swing behind him, and stumped along quickly, his stout stick
and his wooden leg keeping time on the ground. The captain's face was
beaming with satisfaction, for he had contrived to lay hold of young
Cyril Thornycroft, and recount to him (for the fiftieth time) the
whole story of the sea-serpent from beginning to end. He was a short,
wiry man, with the broad round shoulders of a sailor. The road
branched off before him two ways, like an old-fashioned fork; the way
on the right led direct to the village and the common beach; the way
on the left to his home.
The captain halted. Sociably inclined, he was rather fond of taking
himself to the Mermaid; that noted-public house where the sailors and
the coastguard men congregated to watch the omnibus come in from
Jutpoint. It must be getting near to the time of its arrival,
half-past eleven, and the captain's leg moved a step forward in the
direction; on the other hand, he wanted to say a word to that
she-serpent Sarah (with whom he had enjoyed an encounter before coming
out) about the dinner. The striking of the clock decided him, and he
bore on for home, past the churchyard. Crossing part of the heath, he
came to the houses, red brick, detached, cheerful, his own being the
third. At the window of the first sat an old lady. Captain Copp went
through the little gate and put his face without ceremony against the
pane, close to Mrs. Connaught's.
"How's the master this morning?" he called out through the glass.
She answered by drawing aside and pointing to the fire. An asthmatical
old gentleman, just recovering from a fit of the gout, sat there in a
white cotton nightcap and dressing-gown made of yellow flannel.
"He's come down for the first time, Captain Copp. He looks brave this
morning," was Mrs. Connaught's answer.
"Glad to see ye, comrade; I'll come in later," cried the captain
through the window, flourishing his stick in token of congratulation.
And old Mr. Connaught, who had not heard a word, nodded the tassel of
the white cap by way of answer.
In the parlour at home, when Captain Copp entered it, sat his wife at
work, a faded lady with a thin and fair face. Taking out the newspaper
he had brought, he began to open it.
"Did you see the justice, Sam?" asked his wife in her gentle, loving
tones.
"No, he was out. I only saw Cyril. There'll be a fine row when he
comes home. Mary Anne has run away."
Mrs. Copp dropped her work. "Run away! oh, Sam! Run away from where?"
"From where?--why, from school," said the choleric captain, who was
just as hot as his wife was calm. "She came bursting in upon them this
morning at breakfast, having run home all the eight miles. And she
says she won't go back."
Mrs. Samuel Copp, who had never in her life presumed to take a walk
without express permission given for it, lifted her hands in dismay.
"I feared she would never stay at school; I feared she would not."
"Old Connaught is downstairs today, Amy," observed the captain to her
after a long interval of silence, as he turned his paper.
"I am glad of that. He suffers sadly, poor man."
"Well, he's getting old, you see; and he's one that has coddled
himself all his life, which doesn't answer. I say! who's this?"
A vision of something bright had flashed in at the little garden gate,
on its way to the door. Mrs. Copp started up, saying that it was Mary
Anne Thornycroft.
"Not a bit of it," said the captain. "Mary Anne Thornycroft would come
right in and not stand knocking at the door like a simpleton."
The knocking was very load and decisive, such as, one is apt to fancy
in a simple country place, must herald the approach of a visitor of
consequence. Sarah appeared showing in the stranger.
"Lady Ellis, ma'am," she said to her mistress.
A dress of rich black silk, a handsome India shawl, a girlish straw
bonnet, with a great deal of bright mauve ribbon about it, a white
veil, and delicate lavender gloves. My lady had got up herself well
for her journey; stylish, but not too fine to travel. She had
discarded her mourning, but it was convenient to wear her black silks.
The captain and his wife rose.
Yes, it was Lady Ellis. But she had mistaken the direction given her,
and had come to Captain Copp's instead of Mrs. Connaught's. When the
explanation came, the gallant captain offered to take her in.
"Old Connaught is better today," observed he, volunteering the
information. "He's downstairs in a nightcap and flannel gown."
Another minute, and Lady Ellis had the opportunity of making
acquaintance with the articles of attire mentioned, and the old
gentleman they adorned. Captain Copp, with his nautical disregard to
ceremony, went into his neighbour's house as usual, without knocking,
opened the sitting-room door, and sent the visitor in. Mrs. Connaught
was not there, and he went to the kitchen in search of her. They were
primitive-mannered, these worthy people of Coastdown, entering each
others' kitchens or parlours at will.
Mr. Connaught, very excessively taken aback at the unexpected
apparition, did nothing but look up with a stolid stare, as unable
mentally to comprehend what the lady did there, and who she might be,
as he was physically to rise and receive her. Lady Ellis lost her
ready suavity for a moment, struck out of it by the curious old figure
before her.
Mrs. Connaught was preparing some dainty little dish for her husband;
sick people have fancies, and he liked her cooking better than the
cook's. She heard the wooden leg coming along the passage.
"Here!" said the captain, "some lady wants you. Came by the omnibus
from Jutpoint, I gather; got a white figure-head."
He stumped out the back way as he spoke, and Mrs. Connaught entered
the parlour. When Lady Ellis was a girl of fifteen, twenty years
before, and she an unmarried woman getting on for forty, they had seen
a good deal of each other. Not having met since, each had some little
difficulty in making the recognition of the other; but it dawned at
last.
"I could not stay any longer from coming to see you," said Lady Ellis.
"You seem to be the only link left of my early home and my dear
parents. Forgive me for intruding on you today; had I waited longer I
might not have been able to come at all."
She sat down and untied her bonnet, and laid hold of Mrs. Connaught's
hand and kept it, letting fall some tears. Old Connaught stared more
than ever; Mrs. Connaught, not a demonstrative woman, but simple and
kindly, answered in kind.
"How long it seems ago! And you must have grown grand since then, Lady
Ellis! But I never knew your people very much, you know."
"Ah, you forget! _I_ grand!"--she went on, with a cheery laugh; "you
will soon see how different I am from that. I came home to find nearly
all those I cared for dead; you only are left, and I thought I must
come down and find you out. Dear Mrs. Connaught, dear old friend, the
longing for it got irrepressible."
Lady Ellis, it may be remembered, had pencilled down Mrs. Connaught's
address at Mrs. Chester's, as supplied by Mr. Thornycroft. It might
prove useful, she thought, on some future occasion. And the occasion
had come.
The world, as she thought, had not dealt bountifully with her; quite
the opposite. Not to mince the matter, she had to scheme to live, just
as much as Mrs. Chester had, only in a different way. She liked good
clothes, she liked ease and good living. Never, save for those few
short days of her Indian marriage, had she known what it was to be
free from care. Her father had liked play better than work; he and her
mother, both, had a propensity to live beyond their income, to get
into society that was above them, for they were not altogether
gentlepeople. Extravagance, struggles, debts, pinching; all sorts of
contrivances and care, outside show, meanness at home--such had been
the experience of Angeline Finch, until some lucky chance took her to
India as companion to a lady, and a still luckier introduced her to
Sir George Ellis, an old man in his dotage. Two years of her reign as
my lady--two blessed years; show, ease, life. Looking back upon them
now, they seemed like a very haven. But Sir George died; it came to an
end; and she home to Europe again, where she found herself a little
embarrassed how to get along in the world.
Whether she had lost sight of her European acquaintances during her
stay in India, or whether she had originally not possessed many,
certain it was they seemed scarce now.
The vision, coming and going almost like a flash of lightning, of Mr.
Thornycroft and his daughter, the gentleman's evident admiration of
her, the tales she heard (perhaps exaggerated) of the style of living
and the wealth at the Red Court, had set her mind a-longing. She
thought often how desirable would be a visit there: what might it not
lead to? The determination to effect it grew into a settled hope. It
might almost have been called a prevision, as you will find from what
came of it. Of all the ills that can possibly befal this life, Lady
Ellis, perhaps from the circumstances of her early experience,
regarded poverty as the most fatal. She had grown to dread it awfully.
After that short interval of ease and luxury, the thought of having to
relapse back to contrivances, debts, duns, difficulties, turned her
sick. Ah, what a difference it is!--what a wide gap between!--a
shoulder of mutton for dinner one day, cold the next, hashed the
third, beer limited, a gown turned and turned again, shabby at the
best; and a good dinner of three courses and wines, and the toilette
of Madame Elise!
And so, Lady Ellis, working out her own plans, had come swooping down
today on Coastdown and Mrs. Connaught.
She went up to Mr. Connaught and took his hand; she looked admiringly
at him, as if a yellow flannel gown and cotton nightcap were the most
charming articles of attire that fashion could produce; she expressed
her sorrow for his ailments with a gentle voice. Certainly she did her
best to win his heart and his wife's, and went three-parts of the way
towards doing it.
Meanwhile things were in a commotion at the Red Court Farm. On the
departure of Miss Derode at Christmas the justice had put his daughter
to school, an eligible place eight miles only away. She had gone
rebelliously; stayed rebelliously; and now finished up by running home
again.
As the justice found when he got home. Mary Anne flatly refused to go
back. She refused altogether to leave home.
Mr. Thornycroft, privately not knowing in the least what to do with
his self-willed daughter, sat in his magisterial chair, the young lady
carpeted before him. All he could say, and he said a great deal, did
not move her in the least; back to school she would not go. It seemed
that she had resumed at once old habits; had fed her birds, sang her
songs to the grand piano, danced gleefully in and out amid the
servants, and finally put on a most charming silk dress of delicate
colour, that she would never have been permitted to wear at school,
and was too good to have been taken there.
"I shall drive you back in an hour, Mary Anne."
"I will not go, papa."
"What's that, girl? Do you mean to tell me to my face you will not go
when I say you shall? That's something new."
"Of course if you make me get into the carriage and drive me there
yourself, I cannot help it; but I should ran away again tomorrow."
"It is enough disgrace to you to have run away once."
Mary Anne stood, half in contrition, half in defiance. Nearly
seventeen now, tall and fair, very handsome, she scarcely looked one
to be coerced to this step. Her clear blue eyes met those of her
father; the very self-same eyes as his, the self-same will in them.
"As to disgrace, papa, I did nothing more than come straight home. It
was the same thing as a morning walk, and I have often gone out for
_that_."
"What do you suppose is to become of you?" questioned Mr. Thornycroft,
the conviction seating itself within him that she would not be forced
from home again. He ran away from school himself, and his father had
never been able to get him back to it. Mary Anne had inherited his
self-will.
"I can learn at home. Oh, papa, I will be very good and obedient if
you let me stay."
"You are too old now to be at home alone. And you would not obey
mademoiselle, you know."
"If you had wanted to place me at school, you should have done it when
I was young, papa. I am too old to be sent there now, for the first
time."
Inwardly the justice acknowledged the truth of this. He began thinking
that he must keep her, and engage some strict governess. But he did
not want to do this; he objected to having governesses at the Red
Court Farm.
"You don't believe me perhaps, papa. Indeed, I will be good and
obedient; but you must not send me away!"
He supposed it must be so. He did not see his way clearly out of the
dilemma; she had been indulged always, she must be indulged still.
Some signs of relenting in the blue eyes--handsome still as his
daughter's--Mary Anne saw it, and flew into his arms with a shower of
tears.
What an opportunity for Lady Ellis! She stayed on at Mrs. Connaught's,
and went daily to the Red Court, and read with Mary Anne and saw to
her studies; and was her charming companion and indulgent governess.
Excursions abroad in plenty! Going to Jutpoint in Mr. Thornycroft's
high carriage; sailing to sea in Tomlett's boat; here, there,
everywhere! The young men happened to be away at this period, and Lady
Ellis had the field open.
There were some weeks of it. My lady had made a private arrangement
with Mrs. Connaught, insisting upon paying for herself while she
stayed. The sea air was doing her so much good, she said. The sea air!
My lady would have taken up her permanent abode in old Betts's boat
rather than have removed herself to a distance from that desirable
pile of buildings, the Red Court Farm. Looking at it from her little
chamber window, that is, at its chimneys, and imagining the charming
life underneath, it appeared to her as a very haven of refuge.
And Justice Thornycroft was becoming fascinated. He began to think
there was not such another woman in the world.
Perhaps there was not. Let Harry Thornycroft be assured of one
thing--that when these clever women set their minds to lay hold of a
man, to bend him to their will, in nine cases out of ten they will
carry it out, surrounding circumstances aiding and abetting.
One day when she was dining at the Red Court Farm, she suggested to
Mr. Thornycroft that he should take a dame de compagnie for Mary Anne.
She always appeared to have that young lady's best interest on her
mind and heart and tongue. Mary Anne, accustomed to do what she liked,
went out with the cheese.
"It is the only thing, as you will not have a governess. Believe me,
my dear sir, it is the only thing for that dear child," she urged, her
dark eyes going straight out to the honest blue ones of Harry
Thornycroft.
He made no reply. He was thinking that a dame de compagnie might be
more troublesome at the Red Court than even a governess.
"Mary Anne wants now some one who will train her mind and form her
manners, Mr. Thornycroft. It is essential that it should be done.
Wanting a mother, wanting a stepmother, I see only one alternative--a
gentlewoman, who will be friend, governess, and companion in one. It
is a pity, for her sake, that you did not marry again."
Mr. Thornycroft put out a glass of wine with a sudden movement, and
drank it. Lady Ellis resumed, piteously.
"Ah, forgive me! I know I ought not to be so free; to say these
things. I was but thinking of that dear child. You will forgive me?"
"There's nothing to forgive," said the justice. "I am exceedingly
obliged for the interest you take in her, and for any suggestion you
may make. The consideration is--what to do for the best? I don't see
my way clear."
He sat with his fine head a little bent, the light of the wax
chandelier falling on his fair, and still luxuriant, hair; his blue
eyes went out to the opposite wall, seeing nothing; his fingers played
with the wine glass on the table. Evidently there were considerations
to be regarded of which Lady Ellis knew nothing.
"It has been partly out of love to my daughter that I have never given
her a stepmother," said he, coming out of his reverie. "Second wives
are apt to make the home unhappy for the first children; you often see
it."
She smiled sweetly on him. "Dear Mr. Thornycroft! Make the home
unhappy! Ah, then, yes, perhaps so! Women with a hard selfish nature.
Still I do not see how even _they_ could help loving Mary Anne. She is
so----"
What she was, Mr. Thornycroft lost the pleasure of hearing. Sinnett
the housekeeper came in at this juncture, and said the landlord of the
Mermaid, John Pettipher, had come up, asking to see the justice.
"Tomlett has been quarrelling with him, he says, sir," added Sinnett,
"and he wants to have the law of him."
"Tomlett's a fool!" burst impulsively from the lips of Mr.
Thornycroft. "Show him into the justice room, Sinnett."
He went out with a brief word of apology, and he never came back
again. My lady sat and waited, and looked and hoped, but he did not
return to gladden her with his presence. At length Sinnett came in
with some tea.
"Is Mr. Thornycroft gone out?" she asked.
"Yes, my lady. He went out with John Pettipher."
She almost crushed the fragile cup of Sèvres china in her passionate
fingers. Had Mr. John Pettipher heard the good wishes lavished upon
him that evening, he might have stared considerably.
CHAPTER XIII.
What was the Fear?
The early buds had gone, the flowers of May were springing. Richard
and Isaac Thornycroft were at home again, and the old profuse,
irregular mode of life reigned at the Red Court Farm.
The skies are grey this afternoon; there is a chillness in the early
summer air. Mr. Thornycroft, leaning lightly on the slender railings,
that separate his grounds from the plateau, looks up to see whether
rain will be falling.
There was trouble at home with Mary Anne. Uncontrolled as she was just
now, no female friend to watch over her, she went her own way. Not any
very bad way; only a little inexpedient. Masters came from the nearest
town for her studies, taking up an hour or two each day; the rest of
it she exercised her own will. The fear of school had subsided by this
time, and she was growing wilful again--careering about on the heath;
calling in at Captain Copp's and other houses; seated on some old
timber on the beach, talking to the fishermen; riding off alone on her
pony; jolting away (she had done it twice) in the omnibus to Jutpoint,
without saying a word to anybody. Only on the previous day she had
gone out in old Betts's tub of a boat, with the old man and his little
son, got benighted, and frightened them at home. Clearly this was a
state of things that could not be allowed to continue; and Mr.
Thornycroft, leaning there on the railings, was revolving a question:
should he ask Lady Ellis to come to the Red Court as dame de
compagnie?--or as his wife?
"Of the two, a wife would be less dangerous than a companion," thought
Justice Thornycroft, giving the light railings a shake with his strong
hand "I'm not dying for either; but then--there's Mary Anne."
Almost as if she had heard the word, his daughter came out of the
house and ran up to him. The justice put his hand on hers.
"What are you doing here, papa?"
"Thinking about you."
"About me?"
"Yes, about you. You are getting on for seventeen, Mary Anne; you have
as much common sense as most people; therefore--listen, I want to
speak to yon seriously."
She had turned her head at the ringing of the bell of the outer gate.
But the injunction brought it round again.
"Therefore you must be quite well aware, without my having to
reiterate it to you, that this kind of thing cannot be allowed to go
on."
"I do no harm," said Mary Anne, knowing well to what the words tended.
"Harm or no harm, it cannot go on; it shall not. Now, which will you
do--go to school again, or have a governess?"
"I don't want either," she answered, with a pout of her decisive lips.
"Or would you like--it is the one other alternative--a lady to come
here as your friend and companion?"
"Frankly speaking, papa, I don't see what the difference would be
between a companion and a governess. Of course, of the two I'd rather
have a companion. To school I will not go. Lady Ellis was talking to
me of this. I think she was fishing to be the companion herself."
"Fishing!" echoed the justice.
"Well, I do."
"Would you like her?"
"Not at all, papa."
"Who is it that you would like?" asked the justice, tartly.
"I should _like_ nobody in that capacity. I might put up with it; but
that is very different from liking."
"For my own part, if we decide upon a companion, there's no one I
would so soon have as Lady Ellis," remarked Mr. Thornycroft. "Would
you?"
"La la, la la!" sang Mary Anne, her eyes following a passing bird.
"Answer me without further trifling," sternly resumed Mr. Thornycroft,
putting his hand on her shoulder.
The tone sobered her. "Of course, papa; if some one must come, why,
let it be Lady Ellis."
Heaving a sort of relieved sigh, he released her, and she went away
singing to herself a scrap of a pretty little French song, the refrain
of which was, rendered in English--"If you come today, madam, you go
tomorrow."
The misapprehension that arises in this world! None of us are
perfectly open one with the other. Between the husband and the wife,
the parents and the children, the brothers and the sisters,
involuntary deceit reigns. Mr. Thornycroft assumed that Lady Ellis
would be more acceptable to his daughter as a resident at the Red
Court than any one else that could be found: had Miss Thornycroft
spoken the truth boldly, she would have said that my Lady Ellis was
her _bête noire_; the person she most disliked of all others on earth.
But the chief question was not solved yet in the mind of Justice
Thornycroft. Should it be wife, or should it be only companion? He was
quite sufficiently taken with my lady's fascinations to render the
first alternative sufficiently agreeable in prospective; he deemed her
a soft-hearted, yielding gentlewoman; he repeated over again to
himself the mysterious words, "As a wife she would be less dangerous
than a companion." But still, there were considerations against it
that made him hesitate. And with good cause.
He went strolling towards the village, turning down the waste land, a
right of way that was his own, past the plateau. The first house, at
the corner of the street, was the Mermaid. He passed the end of it,
and struck across to a low commodious cottage on the cliffs, whose
rooms were all on the ground-floor. Tomlett lived in it; he was called
the fishing-boat master, and was also employed occasionally on the
farm of Mr. Thornycroft, as he had leisure. Mrs. Tomlett, a little
woman with a red face and shrill voice, was hanging out linen on the
lines to dry.
"Where's Tomlett today?" asked the justice. "He has not been to the
farm."
Mrs. Tomlett turned sharply round, for she had not heard the approach,
and dropped a curtsey to the justice. "He have gone to Dartfield,
sir," she answered, lowering her voice to the key people use when
talking secrets. "Mr. Richard he come in the first thing this morning
and sent him."
Mr. Thornycroft nodded, and went away, muttering to himself
exclusively something to the effect that Richard might have mentioned
it. Passing round by the Mermaid again, he went towards home.
And he was charmingly rewarded. Standing on the waste land near the
plateau, in her pretty and becoming bonnet of delicate primrose and
white, her Indian shawl folded gracefully round her, her dress looped,
was Lady Ellis.
"Do you know, Mr. Thornycroft," she said, as he took her hand, "I have
never been on the plateau. Will you take me?"
Mr. Thornycroft hesitated visibly. "It is not a place for a lady to go
to," he said, after a pause.
"But why not? Mary Anne told me one day you objected to her going on
it."
"I do. The real objection is the danger. The cliff has a treacherous
edge just there, and you might be over before you were aware. A sharp
gust of wind, a footing too near or not quite secure, and the evil is
done. Some accidents have occurred there; one, the last of them, was
attended by very sad circumstances, and I then had these railings put
round."
"You said the _real_ objection was the danger; is there any other
objection?" resumed Lady Ellis, who never lost a word or its emphasis.
"There are certain superstitious fancies connected with the plateau,"
answered Mr. Thornycroft, and very much to her surprise his face took
a solemn look, his voice a subdued tone, just as if he himself
believed in them: "a less tangible fear than the danger, but one that
effectually scares visitors away, at night especially."
They were walking round towards the Red Court now, to which he had
turned, and Mr. Thornycroft changed the subject. She could not fail to
see that he wished it dropped. At the gates of the farm she wished him
good afternoon, and took the road to the heath.
Justice Thornycroft did not enter the gates, but went round to the
back entrance. Passing by the various outbuildings, he gained the
yard, just as a man was driving out with a waggon and team.
"Where are you going?" asked the justice.
"After the oats, sir. Mr. Richard telled me."
"Is Mr. Richard about?"
"He be close to his own stables, sir."
Mr. Thornycroft went on across the yard, not to the house but to the
stables at its end. This portion of the stables (as may be remembered)
was detached from the rest, and had formed part of the old ruins. It
was shut in by a wall. The horses of the two elder sons were kept
there, and their dog-cart. It was their whim and pleasure that Hyde,
the man-servant (who could turn his hand to anything indoors or out),
should attend to this dog-cart and the horses used in it, and not the
groom. Richard was sitting on the frame of the well just on this side
the wall, doing something to the collar of his dog.
"Dicky," said the justice, without any sort of circumlocution, "I
think I shall give the Red Court a mistress."
Richard lifted his dark stern face to see whether--as he verily
thought--his father was joking. "Give it a what?" he asked.
"A mistress. I shall take a wife, I think."
"Are you mad, sir?" asked Richard, after a pause.
"Softly, softly, Dick."
Richard lifted his towering form to its full height. Every feeling
within him, every sense of reason rebelled against the notion of the
measure. A few sharp words ensued, and Richard went into a swearing
fit.
"I knew it would be so; he was always hot and hasty," thought the
justice to himself. "What behaviour do you call this?" he asked aloud.
"Perhaps if you'll hear what I have to say you may cool down. Do you
suppose I should be intending to marry for my own gratification?"
"I don't suppose you'd be marrying for that of anybody else," said the
undaunted Richard.
"It is for the sake of Mary Anne. Some one _must_ be here with her,
and a wife will be less--less risk than a crafty, inquisitive
governess."
"For the sake of Mary Anne!" ironically retorted Richard. "Send Mary
Anne to school."
"I did send her; and she cane back again."
"I'd keep her there with cords. I said so at the time."
"Unfortunately she won't be kept. She has a touch of the Thornycroft
will, Dick."
"Hang the Thornycroft will!" was Dick's angry answer. Not but what it
was a stronger word he said.
"When you have cooled down from your passion I'll talk further with
you," said the justice, some irritation arising in his own tone. "You
have no right to display this temper to me. I am master here,
remember, Dick; though sometimes, if appearances may be trusted, you
like to act as if you forgot that."
Richard bit his dark lip. "You must know how inexpedient the measure
would be, sir. Give yourself a wife!--the house a mistress! Why, the
place might no longer be our own."
"Do you suppose I have not weighed the subject on all sides? I have
been weeks considering it, and I have come to the conclusion that of
the two--a wife or a governess--the former will be the less risk."
"No," said Richard; "a governess may be got rid of in an hour; a wife,
never."
"But a governess might go out in the world and talk; a wife would
not."
Richard dashed the dog's collar on the ground which he had held all
the while. "Mark me, father"--he said, his stern eyes and resolute
lips presenting a picture of angry warning rarely equalled--"this
step, if you enter on it, will lead to what you have so long lived in
dread of,--to what we are ever scheming to guard against. Mary Anne!
Before that girl's puny interests should lead me to--to a measure that
may bring ruin in its wake, I'd send her off to the wilds of Africa."
He strode away, haughty, imperious, rigid in his sharp condemnation.
Mr. Thornycroft, one of those men whom opposition only hardens, turned
to the fields, thinking of his brother Richard; Dick was so like him.
There he found Isaac, stretched idly on the ground with a book. The
young man rose at once in his respect to his father. His handsome
velveteen coat, light summer trousers and white linen, his tall form
with its nameless grace, his fair features, clear blue eyes and waving
light hair, presenting as fine a picture as man ever made.
"That's one way of being useful," remarked Mr. Thornycroft.
Isaac laughed. "I confess I am idle this afternoon: and there's
nothing particular to do."
"Isaac--" Mr. Thornycroft came to a long pause, and then went on
rapidly, imparting the news that he had to tell. And it was a somewhat
curious fact, that an embarrassment pervaded his manner in making this
communication to his second son, quite contrasting with the easy
coolness shown to his eldest. A bright flush rose to Isaac's fair
Saxon face as he listened.
"A wife, sir! Will it be well that you should introduce one to the Red
Court?"
"Don't make me go over the ground again, Isaac. I repeat that I think
it _will_ be well. Some lady must be had here--a wife or a governess,
and the former in my judgment will be the lesser evil."
"As you please, of course, sir," returned Isaac, who could not forget
the perfect respect and courtesy due to his father, however he might
deplore the news. "I have heard you say--"
"Well? Speak out, Ikey."
"That had the time to come over again you would not have married my
mother. I think it killed her, sir."
"My marrying her?" asked the justice in a joke. Isaac smiled.
"No, sir. You know what I mean; the constant state of fear she lived
in."
"She was one of those sensitive, timid women that fear works upon;
Cyril is the only one of you like her," said the justice, his thoughts
reverting with some sadness to his departed wife. "But the error
committed there, Isaac, lay in my disclosing it to her."
"In disclosing what, sir?" asked Isaac, rather at sea.
"The secret connected with the Red Court Farm," laconically answered
Mr. Thornycroft.
There ensued a pause. Isaac put a straw in his lips and bit it like a
man in pain. He had loved his mother with no common love; to hear that
her place was to be occupied fell on him like a blow, putting aside
other considerations against it.
"It is a _great_ risk, sir."
"I don't see it, Isaac. But for an accident your mother would never
have suspected. I then disclosed the truth to her, and I cursed myself
for my folly afterwards. But for that she might have been with us now.
As to risk, we run the same every day with Mary Anne. Ah me! your poor
mother was too sensitive, and the fear killed her."
Isaac winced. He remembered how his mother had faded visibly, day by
day; he could see, even now, the alarm in her soft eyes that the
twilight often brought.
Mr. Thornycroft went away with the last words. Richard, who appeared
to have been reconnoitring, came striding up to his brother, and let
off a little of his superfluous anger, talking loud and fast.
"He is going out of his senses; you know it must be so, Isaac. Who is
the woman? Did he tell you?"
"No," replied Isaac; "but I can give a pretty shrewd guess at her."
"Well?"
"Lady Ellis."
"Who?" roared Richard, as if too much surprised to hear the name
distinctly.
"Lady Ellis. I have seen him walking with her two or three times
lately."
"The devil take Lady Ellis!"
"So say I; rather than she should come into the Red Court."
"Lady Ellis!" repeated Richard, panic-stricken. "_That_ beetle-browed,
bold-eyed woman--with her soft, false words, and her stealthy step!
'Ware her, Isaac. Mark me, 'ware her, all of us, should she come home
to the Red Court!"
-----------------
The June roses were in bloom, and the nightingales sang in the green
branches. Perfume was exhaled from the linden trees; butterflies
floated in the air; insects hummed through the summer day. Out at sea
the fishing-boats lay idly on the sparkling waves that gently rippled
in the sun. And in this joyous time the new mistress came home to the
Red Court Farm.
Lady Ellis had departed for London. Some three weeks afterwards Mr.
Thornycroft went up one day, and was married the next, having said
nothing at all at home. It came upon Mary Anne like a thunderbolt. She
cried, she sobbed, she felt every feeling within her outraged.
"Isaac, I _hate_ Lady Ellis!"
In that first moment, with the shock upon her, it was worse than
useless to argue or persuade, and Isaac wisely left it. The mischief
was done; and all that remained for them was to make the best of it.
Mary Anne, with the independence of will that characterized her, wrote
off a pressing mandate to France, which brought Mademoiselle Derode
back again. In the girl's grief she instinctively turned to the little
governess, her kind friend in the past years.
And now, after a fortnight's lapse, the mature bridegroom and bride
were coming home. The Red Court had made its preparations to receive
them. Mary Anne Thornycroft stood in the large drawing-room, in use
this evening, wearing a pale blue silk of delicate brightness. Her
hard opposition had yielded. Isaac persuaded, mademoiselle reasoned,
Richard came down upon her with a short, stern command--and she stood
ready, if not exactly to welcome, at least to receive civilly her
father's wife. Richard appeared to have fallen in with Isaac's
recommendation--that they should "make the best of it." At any rate he
no longer showed anger; and he ordered his sister not to do it. So,
apparently, all was smooth.
She stood there in her gleaming silk, with blue ribbons in her hair,
and a deep flush in her fair face. Little Miss Derode, her dark brown
eyes kindly and simple as ever, her small face browner, sat placidly
working at a strip of embroidery. It was striking six, the hour for
which Mr. Thornycroft had desired dinner to be ready.
Wheels were heard, the signal of the approach. They were pretty
punctual, then. Isaac went out; it was evident that he at least
intended to pay due respect to his father's wife. Presently Hyde,
who had worn a long face ever since the wedding, threw open the
drawing-room door.
"The justice and Lady Ellis."
The man had spoken her old name in his sore feeling, little thinking
that she intended to retain it, in defiance of good taste. She
approached Mary Anne, and kissed her. That ill-trained young lady
submitted to it for an instant, and then burst into a passionate fit
of angry sobs on her father's breast.
"Don't be a goose," whispered the justice, fondly kissing her.
"Halloa! why, is it _you_, mademoiselle?" he cried out, his eyes
falling on the governess. "When did you come over?"
"She came over because I sent for her, papa; and she has been here
nine or ten days."
A few minutes and they went in to dinner. Richard's place was vacant.
"Where's your brother, Isaac?" asked the justice. "I believe he had to
go out, sir."
Lady Ellis wondered a little at the profuseness of the dinner, but
supposed it was in honour of herself, and felt gratified. It was, in
fact, the usual style of dining at the Red Court, except at those
quiet times (somewhat rare) when the two elder sons were away from
home. But Lady Ellis did not suspect this.
Vastly agreeable did she make herself. Isaac, seated at her left
elbow, was the most attractive man she had come in contact with since
the advent of Mr. Lake, and Lady Ellis liked attractive men, even
though they could be nothing more to her than step-sons. But she had
come home to the Court really intending to be cordial with its
inmates. And, as it has been already hinted, Richard and Isaac saw the
policy of making the best of things.
If ever Mademoiselle Derode had been fascinated with a person at first
sight, it was with Lady Ellis. The delicate attentions of that lady
won her heart. When they crossed the hall to the drawing-room after
dinner, and my lady linked her arm within that of her unwilling
step-daughter, and extended the other to take the poor little withered
hand of the Frenchwoman, mademoiselle's heart went out to her. Very
far indeed was it from the intention of Lady Ellis to undertake the
completion of Mary Anne's education, whatever might be the private
expectation of Mr. Thornycroft: in the visit of the ex-governess she
saw a solution of the difficulty--mademoiselle should remain and
resume her situation. To bring this about by crafty means, her usual
way of going to work, instead of open ones, my lady set out by being
very charming with the governess. The very fact of mademoiselle's
having been prejudiced by Miss Thornycroft against the stepmother who
was coming home, served to augment within her the feeling of
fascination. "A dark, ugly woman, poor and pretentious, who has not an
iota of good feeling or of truth within her whole composition," spoke
Miss Mary Anne, judging of her exactly as Richard did. Great was
mademoiselle's surprise to see the handsome, fascinating, superbly
dressed lady, who came in upon them with her soft smile and suave
manners. She thought Miss Thornycroft had spoken in prejudice only,
and almost resented it for the new lady's sake.
It was daylight still, and Lady Ellis stood for a minute at the
window, open to the evening's loveliness. The sun had set, but some of
its golden brightness lingered yet in the sky. Lady Ellis leaned from
the window and plucked a rose from a tree within reach. Mademoiselle
stood near; Mary Anne sat down on the music stool, her back to the
room and her eyes busied with an uninteresting page of music, striking
a bar of it now and again.
"Are you fond of flowers, miladi?" asked the simple little
Frenchwoman. "I think there's nothing so good hardly in the world."
"You shall have this rose, then. Stay, let me place it in your
waistband. There!--you will have the perfume now until it fades."
Mademoiselle caught the delicate hand and imprinted a kiss upon it.
Single-minded, simple-hearted, possessing no discernment at the best
of times, artless as a child, she took all the sweet looks and kind
tones for real. Lady Ellis sat down on an ottoman in front of the
window, and graciously drew mademoiselle beside her.
"Do you live in Paris?"
"I live in Paris now with my mother. We have a sweet little
appartement near the Rue Montagne--one room and a cabinet de toilette
and a very little kitchen, and we are happy. We go to the Champs
Elysées with our work on fine days, to sit there and see the
world:--the fine toilettes and the little ones at play. It was long
to be separated from her, all the years that I was here."
"How many were they?"
"Seven. Yes, miladi, seven! But what will you? I had to gain. My
mother she has a very small rente, and I came here. Mr. Thornycroft he
was liberal to me--he is liberal to all,--and I saved enough to have
on my side a little rente too. I went home when it was decided I
should leave my pupil, and took my mother from the pension where she
had stayed: and now we are happy together."
A thought crossed Lady Ellis that the charming apartment near the Rue
Montague, and the mother in it, might prove some impediment to her
scheme. Well--it would require the greater diplomacy.
"Is your mother old?"
"She will be sixty-five on the day of the All-Saints; and I was forty
last month," added mademoiselle, with the candour as to age that is
characteristic of a Frenchwoman. Suddenly, just as Lady Ellis was
clasping the withered brown hand with a sweet smile, mademoiselle,
without intending the least discourtesy, started up, her eyes fixed
upon the plateau.
"Ah, bah," she said, sitting down again. "It is but the douanier--the
preventive man."
Lady Ellis naturally looked out, and saw a man pacing along the border
of the plateau. The superstition said to be connected with the place
came into her mind, but did not stay there.
"You were here in the time of Mrs. Thornycroft, mademoiselle?"
"Ah, yes; she did not die for a long while after I came."
"She had years of ill health, I have heard. What was the matter with
her?"
"It was but weakness, as we all thought," answered the Frenchwoman.
"There was nothing to be told; no disease to be found.. She got
thinner every week, and month, and year; like one who fades away. The
doctor he came and came, and said the lungs were wrong; and so she
died. Ah, she was so gentle, so patient; never murmuring, never
complaining. Miladi, she was just an angel."
"What had she to complain of?" asked miladi.
"What to complain of? Why, her sickness; her waste of strength.
Everything was done for her that could be, except one--and that was to
go from home. It was urged upon her, but she would not listen; she
used to shudder at the thought."
"But why?" wondered Lady Ellis.
"I never knew. My pupil, Miss Mary Anne, never knew. She would kneel
at her mamma's feet, and beg her to go anywhere, and to take her; but
the poor lady would shake her head, or say quietly, no; and that would
end it."
Mademoiselle Virginie Derode was a capable woman in her vocation. She
could do a vast many things useful, good, necessary to be done in
the world. But there was one thing that she could not do, and that
was--hold her tongue. Some people are born with the bump of reticence;
my Lady Ellis was a case in point: some, it may be said, with the bump
of communicativeness, though I don't know where it lies. Mademoiselle
was an exemplification of the latter.
"There was some _secret_--some trouble on Madame Thornycroft's mind,"
said good mademoiselle in her open-heartedness. "Towards the last,
when the weakness grew to worse and worse, she would--what do you
call it?--wander a little; and I once heard her say that it had killed
her. Mr. Isaac, he was in the room at the time, and he shook his
mother--gently, you know, he loved her very much; and told her she was
dreaming, and talking in her sleep. That aroused her; and she laid her
head upon his shoulder, and thanked him for awaking her."
"And was she talking in her sleep?"
"Ah, no; she was not asleep. But I think Mr. Isaac said it because of
me. I saw there was something, always from the time I first came; she
used to start at shadows; if the window did but creak she would turn
white, and stare at it; if the door but opened suddenly, she would
turn all over in a cold sweat. It was like a great fear that never
went away."
"But what fear was it?" reiterated Lady Ellis.
"I used to repeat to myself that same question--'What is it?' One day
I said to Hyde, as I saw him watching his mistress, 'She has got some
trouble upon her mind?' and he, that polite Hyde called me a French
idiot to my face, saying she had no more trouble on her mind than he
had on his. I never saw Hyde fierce but that one time. Ah, but yes;
she certainly said it; that it had killed her."
"That _what_ had killed her?" still questioned Lady Ellis,
considerably at sea.
"I had to guess what; I knew it quite well as I listened; the secret
trouble that had been upon her like a fright perpetual."
Lady Ellis threw her piercing eyes upon the soft and simple ones of
the little Frenchwoman. All this was as food for her curious mind. "A
perpetual fright!" she repeated musingly. "I never heard of such a
thing. What was it connected with?"
"I don't know, unless it was connected with that horror of the
plateau. Miladi, I used to think it might be."
Casting her thoughts back some few weeks, Lady Ellis remembered the
little episode of her proposing to go on the plateau, and Mr.
Thornycroft's words as he opposed it. She turned this to use now with
mademoiselle in her clever way.
"Mr. Thornycroft was speaking to me about this--this mystery connected
with the plateau, but we were interrupted, and I did not gather much.
It is a mystery, is it not, mademoiselle?"
"But, yes; it might be called a mystery," was the answer.
"Will you recite it to me?"
Mademoiselle knew very little to recite; but that little she
remembered with as much distinctness as though it had happened
yesterday. One light evening in the bygone years, shortly after she
came to the Red Court, she went out in the garden and strolled on to
the plateau. There were no preventive railings round it then. It was
fresh and pleasant there; the sea was calm, the moonbeams fell across
the waves; and a vessel far away, lying apparently at anchor, showed
its cheery white light. Mademoiselle strolled back towards the house,
and was about to take another turn, when she saw a figure on the edge
of the plateau, seemingly standing to look at the sea. To her sight it
either wore some white garment, or else the rays of the moon caused it
to appear so. At that moment Richard Thornycroft came up. In turning
to speak to him mademoiselle lost sight of the plateau, and when she
looked again, the figure was gone. "Was it a shadowy sort of figure?"
Richard asked her, in a low voice, when she expressed her surprise at
the disappearance; and mademoiselle answered after a moment's
consideration that she thought it _was_ shadowy. Mr. Richard looked up
at the sky, and then down at her, and then far away; his countenance
(it seemed to mademoiselle that she could see it now) wearing a
curious expression of care and awe. "It must have been the ghost," he
said; "it is apt to show itself when strangers appear at night on the
plateau." The words nearly startled mademoiselle out of her seven
senses; "ghosts" had been her one dread through life. She put her poor
trembling fingers on Richard's coat sleeve, and humbly begged him to
walk back with her as far as the house. Richard did so; giving her
scraps of information on the way. He had never seen the figure
himself, perhaps because he had specially looked for it, but many at
Coastdown had seen it; nay, some even then living at the Red Court.
Why did the ghost come _there?_ Well, it was said that a murder had
been committed on that very spot, the edge of the plateau, and the
murderer, stung with remorse, killed himself within a few hours, and
could not rest in his grave. Mademoiselle was too scared to hear all
he said; she heard quite enough for her own peace; and she went into
the presence of Mrs. Thornycroft, bursting into tears. When that lady
heard what the matter was, she chided Richard in her gentle manner.
"Was there _need_ to have told her this?" she whispered to him with a
strange sorrow, a great reproach, in her sad brown eyes. "I am sorry
to have said it if it has alarmed mademoiselle," was Richard's answer.
"It need not trouble her; let her keep off the plateau at night; it
never comes in the day." That Richard believed in it himself appeared
all too evident, and she remarked it to Mrs. Thornycroft as she left
the room. That good lady poured a glass of wine out for her with her
own hand, and begged her, in accents so imploring as to take a tone of
wildness, never again to go on the plateau after dusk had fallen. No
need of the injunction; mademoiselle had scuttered onwards ever since
with her head down, if obliged to go abroad at night in attendance on
Miss Thornycroft.
To hear her tell this in a low earnest whisper, her brown hands
clasped, her scared eyes strained on the opposite plateau, whose edge
stood out defined and clear against the line of sea beyond and the sky
above, was the strangest of all to Lady Ellis.
"If there is one thing that I have feared in life it is a revenant,"
confessed mademoiselle. "Were I to see one, knowing it was one, I
think I should die. There was a revenant in the convent where they put
me when I was a little child; a white-faced nun who had died
unshriven; and we used to hear her in the upper corridors on a windy
night. Ah, me! I was sick with fear when I listened; I was but a poor
little weak thing then, and the dread of revenants has always rested
with me."
Lady Ellis suppressed her inclination to smile, and pressed the
trembling brown fingers in her calm ones. With the matter-of-fact
plateau lying there before her, with her own matter-of-fact mind so
hard and real, the ghost story sounded like what it must be, simple
delusion. But that something strange was connected with the plateau,
she had little doubt.
"And what more did you hear of it?" she asked.
"Nothing--nothing more after that night. In a day or two, when my
courage came to me, and I would have asked details, Mr. Thornycroft,
who happened to be in the room, went into great anger. He told me to
hold my tongue; never to speak or think of the subject again, or he
should send me back to France. I obeyed him; I did not speak of it;
even when there was talk in the village because of the accident, and
he had the railings put up, I kept myself silent. I could not obey him
in the other thing--not to think of it. I tried not; and I got dear
Mrs. Thornycroft to put my bed in a back room, so that I did not see
the plateau from my window. Well, to go back, miladi: I think it must
have been this cause, or something connected with it, that brought the
fear in which she lived to Mrs. Thornycroft."
Lady Ellis was silent. She could not think anything of the sort.
Unless, indeed, the late Mrs. Thornycroft was of a kindred nature to
mademoiselle; timorous and weak-minded.
"The preventive men pace there, do they not?"
"By day, yes; they walk on to it from their beat below, but not much
at night. Ah, no! not since the accident; they do not like the ghost."
Mademoiselle rose; she was going to Mrs. Wilkinson's, on the heath,
for the rest of her stay in Coastdown. Saying good night to my lady,
she went in search of Mary Anne, and could not find her.
Mary Anne was with her brother Isaac. She had flown to him after
quitting the presence of her stepmother, having had much ado to
repress all the feelings that went well-nigh to choke her. With a
crimson face and heaving bosom, with wild sobs, no longer checked, she
threw herself on his neck.
"Now, Mary Anne!"
"It has been my place ever since mamma died. It is not right that she
should take it."
He found she was speaking of the seat at table. Every little incident
of this kind, that must inevitably occur when a second wife is brought
home, did but add to the feeling of bitter grief, of _wrong_. Not for
the place in itself did she care, but because a stranger had usurped
what had been their mother's.
Letting the burst of grief spend itself, Isaac Thornycroft then sat
down, put her in a chair near him, and gave her some wise counsel. It
would be so much happier for her--for all of them--for papa--that they
should unite in making the best of the new wife come amidst them; of
her, and for her.
All he said was of little use. Anger, pain, bitter, bitter
self-reproach sat passionately this night on the heart of Mary Anne
Thornycroft.
"Don't talk, Isaac. I hope I shall not die of it."
"Die of it?"
"The fault is mine. I can see it well. Had I been obedient to Miss
Derode; had I only stayed quietly at school, it never would have
happened. Papa would not have brought her home, or thought of bringing
her home, but for me."
That was very true. Mary Anne Thornycroft, in her strong good sense,
saw the past in its right light. She could blame herself just as much
as she could others when the cause of blame rested with her. Isaac
strove to still her emotion; to speak comfort to her; but she only
broke out again with the words that seemed to come from a bursting
heart.
"I hope I shall not die of it!"
CHAPTER XIV.
Superstitious Tales.
With the morning Lady Ellis assumed her position as mistress of the
Red Court. She took her breakfast in bed--a habit she favoured--but
came down before ten, in a beautiful challi dress, delicate roses on a
white ground, with some white net lace and pink ribbons in her hair.
The usual breakfast hour was eight o'clock, at least it was always
laid for that hour; and Mr. Thornycroft and his sons went out
afterwards on their land.
Looking into the different rooms, my lady found no one, and found her
way to the servants' offices.
The kitchen, a large square apartment, fitted up with every known
apparatus for cooking, was the first room she came to. Its two sash
windows looked on the side of the house towards the church. It had
been built out, comparatively of late years, beyond the back of the
dining-room, a sort of added wing, or projecting corner. But
altogether the back of the house was irregular; a nook here, a
projection there; rooms in angles; casements large or small as might
happen. The sash windows of the kitchen alone were good and modern,
but you could not see them from the back. Whatever the irregularity of
the architecture, the premises were spacious; affording every
accommodation necessary for a large household. A room near the kitchen
was called the housekeeper's room; it was carpeted, and the servants
sat in it when they pleased; but they were by no means fashionable
servants, going in for style and ceremony, and as a rule preferred the
kitchen. There were seven servants indoors; Sinnett being the
housekeeper.
My lady--as she was to be called in the house--was gracious. The cook
showed her the larder, the dairy, and anything else she chose to see,
and then received the orders for dinner--a plain one--fish, a joint,
pudding, and cream.
It was the intention of my lady to feel her way, rather than assume
authority hurriedly. She saw, with some little surprise, that no
remnant was left of the last day's dinner; at least none was to be
seen. Not that day would she inquire after it, but keep a watchful eye
on what went from table for the future. To say that her rule in the
house was to have one guiding principle--economy--would be only
stating the fact. There had been no marriage settlements, and my lady
meant to line her pocket by dint of saving.
The rooms were still deserted when she returned to them. My lady stood
a moment in the hall, wondering if everybody was out. The door at the
end, shutting off the portion of the house used by the young men,
caught her eye, and she resolved to go on an exploration tour. Opening
the door softly, she saw Richard Thornycroft in the passage talking to
Hyde. He raised his hat, as in courtesy bound; but his dark stern face
never relaxed a muscle; and somehow it rather daunted her.
"My father's wife, I believe," said Richard. "To what am I indebted
for the honour of this visit?"
Just as if the rooms at this end of the house were his! But my lady
made the best of it.
"It is Mr. Richard, I am sure! Let us be friends." She held out her
hand, and he touched the tips of her fingers.
"Certainly. If we are not friends the fault will lie on your side," he
pointedly said. "I interfere with no one in the house. I expect no one
to interfere with me. Let us observe this rule to each other, and I
dare say we shall get on very well."
She gently slid her hand within his, encased in its rough coat. Hyde,
recovering from his trance of amazement, touched his hat, and went out
at the outer door.
"I have not been in this portion of the house. Will you show it to
me?"
"I will show it to you with pleasure: what little there is of it to
see," replied Richard. "But--once seen, I must request you to
understand that these rooms are for gentlemen only. Ladies are out of
place in them."
She had a great mind to ask why; but did not. Very poor rooms, as
Richard said--one on either side the passage. Small and plain in
comparison with the rest of the house. A strip of thick cocoa-nut
matting ran along the passage to the outer door. It was open, and my
lady advanced to it.
Looking at the most confined prospect she ever saw; in fact, at no
prospect at all. A wall, in which there was a small door of egress,
shut out all view of the sea and the plateau. Another wall, with wide
gates of wood, hid the courtyard and the buildings beyond. Opposite,
in almost close proximity, leaving just space for the dog-cart or
other vehicles to come in and turn, was the room used as a
coach-house, formerly part of the stables when the house was a castle.
My lady walked across the gravel, and entered it. A half-smile crossed
Richard's face.
"There's not much to see here," he said.
Certainly not much. The dog-cart stood in one corner; in another were
some trusses of straw, and a dilapidated cart turned upside down.
Adjoining was a stable for the two horses alternately used in the
dog-cart. My lady stepped back to the house door, and took a
deliberate survey of the whole.
"It strikes me as being the dreariest-looking spot possible," she
said. "A dead wall on each side, and a shut-in coach-house opposite!"
"Yes. Those who planned it had not much regard to prospect," answered
Richard. "But, then, prospect is not wanted here."
She turned into the rooms; the windows of both looking on this
confined yard. In the one room, crowded with guns, fishing-rods,
dog-collars, boxing gloves, and other implements used by the young
men, she stood a minute, scanning it curiously. In the other, on the
opposite side the passage, was a closed desk-table, a telescope and
weather-glass, some armchairs, pipes, and tobacco.
"This is the room I have heard Mr. Thornycroft call his den," said
she, quickly.
"It is. The other one is mine and my brother's."
A narrow twisting staircase led to the two rooms above. My lady,
twisting up it, turned into one of the two--Richard's bed-chamber. The
window looked to the dreary line of coast stretching forward in the
distance.
"Who sleeps in the other room?" she asked.
"Hyde. This part of the house is lonely, and I choose to have him
within call."
In her amazement to hear him say this--the brave strong man, whom no
physical fear could daunt--a thought arose that the superstition
obtaining at the Red Court, whatever it might be, was connected with
these shut-in-rooms; shut in from within and without. Somehow the
feeling was not pleasant to her, and she turned to descend the stairs.
"But, Mr. Richard, why do you sleep here yourself?"
"I would not change my room for another; I am used to it. At one time
no one slept here, but my mother grew to think it was not safe at
night. She was nervous at the last."
He held the passage-door open, and raised his hat, which he had worn
all the while, as she went through it, then shut it with a loud,
decisive click.
"A sort of intimation that I am not wanted there," thought she. "He
need not fear; there's nothing so pleasant to go for, rather the
contrary."
In the afternoon, tired of being alone, she put on her things to go
out, and met Mr. Thornycroft. She began a shower of questions. Where
had he been? What doing? Where were all of them--Isaac--Mary Anne? Not
a soul had she seen the whole day, except Richard. Mr. Thornycroft
lifted his finger to command attention, as he answered her.
It would be better that they should at once begin as they were to go
on; and she, his lady wife, must not expect to get a categorical
account of daily movements. He never presumed to ask his sons how
their days were spent. Farmers--farming a large tract of land--had to
be in fifty places at least in the course of the day; here, and there,
and everywhere. This applied to himself as well as to his sons. When
Cyril came home he could attend upon her; he had nothing to do with
the out-door work, and never would have.
"Hyde said you rode out this morning."
"I had business at Dartfield: have just got home."
"Dartfield! where's that?"
"A place five or six miles away: with a dreary road to it, too," added
the justice.
"Won't you walk with me?" she pleaded, in the soft manner that had, so
attracted him before marriage.
"If you like. Let us go for a stroll on the heath."
"Where is Mary Anne?" she inquired, as they went on.
"Mary Anne is your concern now, not mine. Has she not been with you?"
"I have not seen her at all today. When I got down--it was before
ten--all the world seemed flown. I found Richard. He took me over the
rooms at the end of the passage; to your bureau (he called the room
that, as the French do), and to his chamber and Hyde's, and to the
place filled with their guns and things."
The justice gave a sort of grin. "That's quite a come-out for Dick.
Showing you his chamber! You must have won his heart."
My lady's private opinion was that she had not won it; but she did not
say so. Gracefully twitching up her expensive robe, lest it should
gather harm in its contact with the common, she tripped on, and they
reached the heath. Mr. Thornycroft proposed to make calls at the
different houses in succession, beginning with Captain Copp's. She
heard him with a little shriek of dismay. "It was not etiquette."
"Etiquette?" responded the justice.
"I am but just married. It is their place to call on me first."
Mr. Thornycroft laughed. Etiquette was about as much understood as
Greek at Coastdown. "Come along!" cried he, heartily. "There's the
sailor and his wooden leg opening the door to welcome us."
The sailor was doing it in a sailorly fashion,--flourishing his wooden
leg, waving his glazed hat round and round, cheering and beckoning.
The bride made a merit of necessity, and went in. Here they had news
of Mary Anne. Mrs. Copp, Mademoiselle Derode, and Miss Thornycroft had
gone to Jutpoint by omnibus under Isaac's convoy.
"And the women are coming back here to a tea-fight," said the plain
sea-captain; "cold mackerel and shrimps and hot cakes; that she-pirate
of ours is baking the cakes in the oven; so you need not expect your
daughter home, justice."
Mr. Thornycroft nodded in answer. His daughter was welcome to stay.
The dinner-party at the Red Court that evening consisted of five. Its
master and mistress, the two sons, and a stranger named Hopley from
Dartfield, whom Richard brought in. He was not much of a gentleman,
and none of them had dressed. My lady thought she was going in for a
prosy sort of life--not exactly the one she had anticipated.
Very much to her surprise she found the dinner-courses much augmented;
quite a different dinner altogether from that which she had ordered.
Boiled fowls, roast ducklings, tarts, ice-creams, macaroni--all sorts
of additions. My lady compressed her lips, and came to the conclusion
that her orders had been misunderstood. There is more to be said yet
about the dinners at the Red Court Farm; not for the especial benefit
of the reader, he is requested to take notice, but because they bear
upon the story.
At its conclusion she left the gentlemen and sat alone at the open
window of the drawing-room;--sat there until the shades of evening
darkened; the flowers on the lawn sent up their perfume, the evening
star came twinkling out, the beautiful sea beyond the plateau lay calm
and still. She supposed they had all gone out, or else were smoking in
the dining-room. When Sinnett brought her a cup of tea, presenting it
on a silver waiter, she said, in answer to an inquiry, that the
gentlemen as a rule had not taken tea since the late Mrs.
Thornycroft's time. Miss Thornycroft and her governess had it served
for themselves, with Mr. Cyril when he was at home from his tutor's.
"That is it," muttered my lady to herself, as Sinnett left the room.
"Since their mother's death there has been no one to enforce order in
the house, and they have had the run like wild animals. It's not
likely they would care to be with the girl and that soft French
governess."
It was dull, sitting there alone, and she wound an Indian shawl round
her shoulders, went out across the lawn, and crossed the railings to
the banned plateau.
It was very dreary. Not a soul was in sight; the landscape lay still
and grey, the sea dull and silent. A mist seemed to have come on. This
plateau, bare in places, was a small weary waste. Standing as near to
the dangerous edge as she dared, my lady stretched her neck and saw
the outline of the Half-moon underneath, surrounded by its waters, for
the tide was nearly at its height. The projecting rocks right and left
seemed to clip nearly round it, hiding it from the sea beyond. The
cliff, as she looked over, was almost perpendicular, its surface
jagged, altogether dangerous to look upon, and she drew back with a
slight shudder--drew back to find Richard Thornycroft gazing at her
from the plateau's railings, on which he leaned. They met halfway.
"Were you watching me, Mr. Richard?"
"I was," he gravely answered. "And not daring to advance or make the
least sound, lest I should startle you."
"It is a dangerous spot. Mr. Thornycroft was saying so to me one day.
But I had never been here, and I thought I would have a look at it; it
was lonely indoors. So I came. Braving the ghost," she added, with a
slight laugh.
Richard looked at her, as much as to ask what she knew, but did not
speak.
"Last evening, when we were sitting in the drawing-room, the plateau
in view, your sister's governess plunged into the superstitious,
telling me of a 'revenant' that appears. I had heard somewhat of it
before. She thinks you believe in it."
Richard Thornycroft extended his hand to help her over the railings.
"Revenant, or no revenant, I would very strongly advise you not to
frequent the plateau at night," he said, as they walked on to the
house. "Do not be tempted to risk the danger."
"Are you advising me against the ghostly danger or the tangible?"
"The tangible."
"What is the other tale? What gave rise to this superstition?"
Richard Thornycroft did not answer. He piloted her indoors as far as
the drawing-room, all in silence. The room was so dusk now that she
could scarcely see the outline of the furniture.
"Will you not tell it me, Mr. Richard? Mademoiselle's was but a lame
tale."
"What was mademoiselle's tale?"
"That she saw a shadowy figure on the plateau, which disappeared
almost as she looked at it. You gave her some explanation about a
murderer that came again as a revenant, and she had lived in dread of
seeing it ever since."
If my lady had expected Richard Thornycroft to laugh in answer to her
laugh, she was entirely mistaken; his face remained stern, sad,
solemn.
"I cannot tell you anything, Lady Ellis, that you might not hear from
any soul at Coastdown," he said presently. "People, however, don't
much care to talk of this."
"Why don't they?"
Richard lifted his dark eyebrows. "I scarcely know: a feeling
undoubtedly exists against doing so. What is it you wish to hear?"
"All the story, from beginning to end. Was there a murder?"
"Yes; it took place on the plateau. I can give you no particulars, I
was but a little fellow at the time, except that the man who committed
the deed hung himself before the night was out. The superstition
obtaining is, that he does not rest quietly in his unconsecrated
grave, and comes abroad at times to haunt the plateau, especially the
spot where the deed was done."
"And that spot?"
Richard extended his hand and pointed to the edge as nearly as
possible in a line with the window.
"It was there; just above the place they call the Half-moon. The
figure appears on the brink, and stands there looking out over the
sea. I should have said is reported to appear," he corrected himself.
"Did you ever see it yourself?"
"I cannot tell you."
"Not tell me!"
"I have undoubtedly seen a figure hovering there; but whether ghostly
or human it has never given me time to ascertain. Before I could well
cross the railings even, it has gone."
"Gone where?"
"I never could detect where. And to tell you the truth, I have thought
it strange."
"Have you seen it many times?"
"Three or four."
He was standing close against the side of the window as he spoke, his
profile stern as ever, distinct in the nearly faded light. My lady sat
and watched him.
"The superstition has caused an accident or two," he resumed. "A poor
coastguard-man was on his beat there one moonlight night and discerned
a figure coming towards him walking on the brink of the cliff, as he
was. What he saw to induce him to take it for the apparition, or to
impart fear, was never explained. With a wild cry he either leaped
from the cliff in his fright, or fell from it."
"Was he killed on the spot?"
"So to say. He lived but a few minutes after help came: the tide was
up, and they had to get to him in boats: just long enough to say some
nearly incoherent words, to the effect of what I have told you. A
night or two after that a man, living in the village, went on the
plateau looking for the ghost, as was supposed, and he managed to miss
his footing, fell over, and was killed. It was then that my father had
the railings put; almost a superfluous caution, as it turned out, for
the impression made on the neighbourhood by these two accidents was so
great, and the plateau became so associated in men's minds with so
much horror, that I think nobody would go on it at night unless
compelled."
"Lest they should see three ghosts instead of one," interrupted a
light, careless voice at the back of the room. My lady started,
Richard turned.
It came from Isaac Thornycroft. He had come in unheard, the door was
but half closed, and gathered the sense of what was passing.
"Quite an appropriate atmosphere for ghostly stories," he said; "you
are all in the dark here. Shall I ring for lights?"
"Not yet," interposed my lady, hastily; "I want to hear more."
"There's no more to hear," said Richard.
"Yes there is. You cannot think how this interests me, Mr. Richard;
but I want to know--I want to know what was the cause of the murder.
_Can't_ you tell me?"
Isaac Thornycroft had perched himself on the music-stool, his fair,
gay, open face a very contrast just now to his brother's grave one. In
the uncertain light he fancied that my lady looked to him with the
last question, as if in appeal, and he answered it.
"Richard can tell it if he likes."
But it seemed that Richard aid not like. He had said the neighbourhood
cared not to speak of this; most certainly _he did not_. It was
remembered afterwards, when years had passed; and the strange fact was
regarded as some subtle instinct lying far beyond the ken of man. But
there was my lady casting her exacting looks towards him.
"They were two brothers, the disputants, and the cause was said to be
jealousy. Both loved the same woman, and she played them off one on
the other. Hence the murder. Had I been the Nemesis I should have
slain the woman after them."
"Brothers!" repeated Lady Ellis. "It was a dreadful thing."
Richard, quitting his place by the window, left the room. Isaac, who
had been softly humming a tune to himself, brought it to a close. A
broad smile sat on his face: it appeared evident to my lady that the
superstition was regarded by him as fun rather than otherwise. She
fell into thought.
"You do not believe in the ghost, Mr. Isaac?"
"I don't say that. I do not fear it."
"Did you ever see it?"
"Never so much as its shadow; but it is currently believed, you know,
that some people are born without the gift of seeing ghosts."
He laughed a merry laugh. My lady resumed in a low tone.
"Is it not thought that your mother feared it? That it--it helped to
kill her?"
As if by magic, changed the mood of Isaac Thornycroft. He rose from
the stool, and stood for a moment at the window in the faint rays of
the light; his face was little less dark than his brother's, his voice
as stern.
"By your leave, madam, we will not bring my mother's name up in
connexion with this subject."
"I beg your pardon; but--there is one thing I should like to ask you.
Do not look upon me as a stranger, but as one of yourselves from
henceforth; come here, I hope, to make life pleasanter to all of us,"
she continued, in her sweetest tone. "Those rooms at the end of the
house, with the high walls on either side--is there any superstition
connected with them?"
Isaac Thornycroft simply stared at her.
"I cannot tell _why_ I fancy it. To-day when Mr. Richard was showing
me those rooms, the thought struck me that the superstition said to
obtain at the Red Court Farm must be connected with them."
"Who says that superstition obtains at the Red Court Farm?" questioned
Isaac sharply.
"I seem to have gathered that impression from one or another."
"Then I should think, for your own peace of mind, you had better
ungather it--if you will allow me to coin a word," he answered. "The
superstition of the plateau does not extend to the Red Court."
She gave a slight sniff. "Those rooms looked dull enough for it. And
your brother--your strong, stern, resolute brother--confessed to
feeling so lonely in them that he had Hyde to sleep in the chamber
near him. There's not so much space between them and the plateau."
Isaac turned from the window and faced her; voice, eye, face resolute
as Richard's.
"Mrs. Thornycroft--or Lady Ellis, whichever it may please you to be
called--let me say a word of advice to you in all kindness. Forget
these things; do not allow yourself to recur to them. For your own
sake I would warn you never to go on the plateau after daylight; the
edge is more treacherous than you imagine; and your roving there could
not be meet or pleasant. As to the rooms you speak of, there is no
superstition attaching to them that I am aware of; but there may be
other reasons to render it inexpedient for ladies to enter them. They
belong to me and my brother; to my father also, when he chooses to
enter; and we like to know that they are private to us. Shall I ring
for lights now?" he concluded, as he turned to quit the room.
"Yes, please. I wonder where Mr. Thornycroft can be?"
"Probably at the Mermaid," he stayed to say.
"At the Mermaid? Do you mean the public-house?"
"Yes. A smoking bout takes place in its best parlour occasionally. My
father, Mr. Southall, Captain Copp, Dangerfield the superintendent of
the coastguard, old Connaught, and a few other gentlemen, meet there."
"Oh!" she answered. "Where are you going?"
"To fetch my sister from Mrs. Copp's."
In the short interval that elapsed before the appearance of the
lights, my lady took a rapid survey of matters in her mind. The
conclusion she arrived at was, that there were some items of the
recent conversation altogether curious; that a certain mysterious
atmosphere enveloped the present as well as the past; not the least of
which was Richard Thornycroft's manner and his too evident faith in
mystery. Take it for all in all, the most incomprehensible place she
had ever come in contact with was the Red Court Farm.
CHAPTER XV.
The New Mistress of the Red Court.
My lady was up betimes in the morning. Remembering the previous day's
dinner, she went to seek the cook, intending to come down upon her
with a reprimand. The servants were only just rising from breakfast,
which afforded my lady an opportunity of seeing the style of that meal
as served in the kitchen of the Red Court Farm.
Tea and coffee; part of a ham, cold; toasted bacon, hot; eggs boiled;
watercress and radishes; a raised pie; cold beef; shrimps; hot rolls;
toast and butter. The sight of all this so completely took Lady Ellis
aback, that she could only stare and wonder.
"Is this your usual breakfast table?" she asked of the cook when the
rest had left the kitchen.
"Yes, my lady."
"By whose permission?"
"By--I don't understand," said the cook, a stolid sort of woman in
ordinary, with a placid face, though very great in her own department.
"Who is it that allows all this?"
Still the woman did not quite comprehend. The scale of living at the
Red Court Farm was so profuse, that the servants in point of fact
could eat what they pleased.
"Sometimes the eatables is varied, my lady."
"But--does Mr. Thornycroft know of this extravagance going on? Is he
aware that you sit down to such a breakfast?"
Cook could not say. He did not trouble himself about the matter. Yes,
now she remembered, the justice had come in when they were at
breakfast and other meals.
"Who has been the manager here?--who has had the ordering of things?"
inquired my lady, in a suppressed passion.
"Sinnett, chiefly. Once in a way the justice would give the orders for
dinner; a'most never," was the reply.
Compressing her lips, determining to suppress all this ere many days
should be over, my lady quitted the subject for the one she had
chiefly come to speak upon.
"And now, cook, what did you mean by flying in the face of my orders
yesterday?"
"Did I fly in the face of 'em?" asked the cook, simply.
"Did you! I ordered a plain dinner--fish, a joint, and pudding. You
sent up--I know not what in addition to it."
"Oh, it's them extra dishes you mean. Yes, my lady, Sinnett ordered
'em."
"_Sinnett!_" echoed my lady. "Did you tell her I had desired the
dinner should be plain--that I had fixed on it?" she asked after a
pause.
"Sinnett said that sort of dinner wouldn't do for the justice, and I
was to send up a better one."
My lady bit her thin lips. "Call Sinnett here if you please."
Sinnett, about her work upstairs, came in obedience to the summons.
She was a little, pale-faced, dark woman, of about thirty-five, given
to wear smart caps. My lady attacked her quietly enough, but with a
manner authoritative.
"I beg you to understand at once that I am mistress here, Sinnett, and
must be obeyed. When I give my orders, whether for dinner or for
anything else, they are not to be improved upon."
"My lady, in regard to adding to the dinner yesterday, I did it for
the best; not to act in opposition to you," replied Sinnett,
respectfully. "A good dinner has to be sent in always: those are the
general orders. The young gentlemen are so much in the habit of
bringing in chance guests, that the contingency has to be provided
for. I have known a party of eight or ten brought in before now, and
we servants quite unaware of it until about to lay the cloth."
"Yes," said my lady, hastily, "that might be all very well when there
was no controlling mistress here. Mr. Thornycroft's sons appear to
have been allowed great license in the house; of course it will be
different now. Remember one thing, if you please, Sinnett, that you do
not interfere with my orders for dinner today."
"Very well, my lady."
Catching up her dress--a beautiful muslin that shone like gold--my
lady turned to the larder, telling the cook to follow her. She had
expected to see on its shelves the dishes that left the table
yesterday; but she saw very little.
"What has become of the ducks, cook? They were scarcely touched at
table."
"We had 'em for our suppers, my lady."
My lady had a wrathful word on the tip of her tongue; she did not
speak it.
"Ducks for supper in the kitchen! Are you in the habit of taking your
supper indiscriminately from the dinner dishes that come down?"
"Yes, my lady. Such is master's orders."
"It appears to me that a vast quantity of provisions must be
consumed," remarked my lady.
"Pretty well," was the cook's answer. "It's a tolerable large family;
and Mr. Thornycroft has a good deal given away."
"Provisions?"
"He do; he's a downright good man, my lady. Not a morning passes, but
some poor family or other from the village comes up and carries home
what's not wanted here."
"I wonder you don't have them up at night as well," said my lady, in
sarcasm.
The cook took it literally.
"That's one of the few things not allowed at the Red Court Farm. Mr.
Thornycroft won't have people coming here at night: and for the matter
of that," added the woman, "they'd not care to come by the plateau
after dark.--About today's dinner, my lady?"
Yes; about today's dinner. As if in aggravation of the powers that
had been, my lady ordered soles, a piece of roast beef, the tart that
had not been cut yesterday, and the remainder of the lemon cream.
As she went sailing away, the cook returned into the kitchen to
Sinnett. The woman was really perplexed.
"I say, Sinnett, here's a start! A piece of ribs of beef, and nothing
else. What's to be done?"
"Send it up," quietly replied Sinnett.
"But what on earth will the justice and the young masters say?"
"We shall see. I wash my hands of interfering. Exactly what she has
ordered, cook, and no more, mind: she and the master must settle it
between them."
Mary Anne Thornycroft had hoped she "should not die of it." Of that
there was little chance; but that the girl had received a great blow,
there was no disputing. Mr. Thornycroft had said a word to her that
morning after breakfast in his authoritative manner, to remind her
that she was not to run wild, now there was some one at home to be her
friend, mother, companion. Smarting under the sense of wrongs that in
her limited experience, her ignorance of the woes of the world, she
believed had never fallen on anybody's head before, Mary Anne when
left alone burst into a flood of tears; and Isaac surprised her in
them. Half in vexation, half in pride, she dried them hastily. Isaac
drew her before him, and stood holding her hands in his, looking down
gravely into her face.
"What did you promise me, Mary Anne?"
No answer.
"That you would, for a time at least, make the best of things. That
you would _try_ the new rule before rebelling against it."
"But I can't. It is too hard, Isaac. Papa's beginning to interfere
now."
"Interfere! Is that the right word to use?"
She looked down, pouting her pretty lips. It was a good sign, as Isaac
knew.
"There was no harm in my walking to Mrs. Copp's after breakfast
yesterday; or in my staying there; or in my going with you to
Jutpoint."
"Did papa say there was harm?"
"He told me I was not to run wild now. He told me that I had a"--the
poor chest heaved piteously--"a mother. A mother to control me!"
"Well!" said Isaac.
"She is not my mother--I will never call her so. Oh, Isaac! why can't
the old days come back again, when mademoiselle was here?"
"Hush! don't cry. Richard or she may be coming in. There; be your
own calm self, while I say a word to you. Listen. This calamity has
been--"
"There!" she interrupted. "You say yourself it is a calamity."
"I have never thought it anything else; but it cannot be averted now,
and therefore nothing remains but to try and lighten it. It has been
brought about by you; by you alone, Mary Anne; and if I revert to that
fact for a moment, my dear, it is not to pain you, but to draw an
inference from it for the future. Do not rebel at first to the control
of my lady. It would be unjust, ungracious, altogether wrong; it might
lead to further trouble for you; we know not of what sort. Promise
me," he added, kissing her lips, "that you will not be the one to make
first mischief. It is for your own good that I urge it."
Her better judgment came to her, and she gave Isaac a little nod in
answer.
My lady reaped the benefit of this lecture. Coming in from her
somewhat unsatisfactory visit to the cook, she found the young lady
dutifully practising the Moonlight sonata. My lady looked about the
room, as if by good luck she might find something to avert weariness.
Miss Thornycroft had hoped she should not die of _her_; my lady was
beginning to hope she should not die of ennui.
"Do you never have any books here? Novels?"
"Sometimes," replied Mary Anne, turning round to speak. "We get them
from the library at Jutpoint. There are some books upstairs in the
book-case that used to be mamma's--Walter Scott's, and Dickens's, and
others."
The Moonlight sonata went on again. My lady, who had no soul for
music, thought it the most wofully dull piece she had ever listened
to. She sat inert on the sofa. Life--this life at the Red Court
Farm--was already looking indescribably dreary. And she had pictured
it as a second Utopia! It is ever so; when anticipation becomes lost
in possession, romance and desire are alike gone.
"How long has Sinnett lived here?" she suddenly asked, again
interrupting Miss Thornycroft.
"Ever so long," was the young lady's reply. "She came just before
mamma died."
"What are her precise functions here?--What does she call herself?"
"We don't call her anything in particular. She is a sort of general
servant, overlooking everything. She is housekeeper and manager."
"Ah! she has taken a great deal of authority on herself, I can see."
"Has she?" replied Mary Anne. "I have heard papa say she is one of the
best servants we ever had; thoroughly capable."
My lady gave her head a little defiant nod: and relapsed into silence
and ennui.
Somehow the morning was got through. In the afternoon they set out to
walk to the heath; it was rather late, for my lady, lying on the sofa
in her bedroom, dropped off to sleep after luncheon. The dinner hour
had been postponed to eight in the evening in consequence of a message
from Mr. Thornycroft.
Winding round the churchyard, Mary Anne stood a moment and looked over
the dwarf quickset hedge, on that side not much higher than her knee.
My lady observed that her hands were clasped for a moment, that her
lips moved.
"What are you doing, Mary Anne?"
"I never like to go by mamma's grave without staying a moment to look
at it, and to say a word or two of prayer," was the simple answer.
My lady laughed, not kindly. "That comes of having a Roman Catholic
governess."
"Does it!" answered the girl quietly, indignant at the laugh.
"Mademoiselle happens to be a Protestant. I did not learn it from her,
or from any one; it comes from my heart."
Turning abruptly on to the heath, Mary Anne saw Mademoiselle Derode
coming towards them, and sprung off to meet her with a glad step.
Disappointment was in store for my lady's private dream of keeping
Miss Derode as governess. Mademoiselle was then on her way to the Red
Court to tell them she was leaving for France in two days.
"You cannot go," said Mary Anne, with the decisively authoritative
manner peculiar to the Thornycrofts. "You must come and spend some
weeks with me at the Red Court."
Mademoiselle shook her little brown head. It was not possible, she
said; happy as she could be at the Red Court; much as she would have
liked to stay again with her dear Miss Mary Anne. Her mother wanted
her, and she must go.
Turning about and about, they paced the heath while she repeated the
substance of her mother's letter. Madame, said she, was suffering from
a cold, from the separation, from loneliness, and had written for her.
The Champs Elysées had no charms without her dear daughter; the
toilettes were miserable; the playing children hustled her, their
bonnes were not polite. Virginie must return the very first hour it
would be convenient to do so. The pot-au-feu got burnt, the
appartement smoked; madame had been so long en pension that she had
forgotten how to manage things; never clever at household affairs, the
craft of her hand appeared to have gone from her utterly. She had not
had a dinner, so to say, since Virginie left; she had not slept one
whole night. While Monsieur and Madame--her pupil's parents--had been
away on their wedding tour, she had said nothing of this, but now that
they were home again she would no longer keep silence. Virginie must
come; and her best prayers would be upon her on the journey.
A sort of mocking smile, covered on the instant by a sweet word,
crossed my lady's lips.
"It was all very well," she said, "just what a good mother would
write; but mademoiselle must write back, and explain that she was
wanted yet for some weeks at the Red Court Farm."
"I cannot," said mademoiselle; "I wish I could. Miladi is very good to
invite me; but my mother is my mother."
"You left your mother for seven years; she did well then."
"But, yes; that was different. Miladi can picture it. We have our
ménage now."
"I have set my heart upon your coming to us, mademoiselle," was
miladi's rejoinder, showing for a moment her white teeth.
"I should not need the pressing, if I could come," was the simple
answer. "It is a holiday to me now to be at the Red Court Farm; but
some things are practicable and others are not practicable, as miladi
knows."
And the poor little governess in the cause of her mother was hard as
adamant. They walked about until my lady's legs were tired, and then
prepared to return.
"Of course you will come back with us, and dine for the last time?"
said Mary Anne.
On any other occasion my lady might have interposed with an intimation
that Mary Anne Thornycroft had no longer licence to invite whom she
pleased to the table of the Red Court Farm. Without waiting for her to
second the invitation, mademoiselle at once accepted it.
"For the last time," she repeated; "I shall be making my baggage
tomorrow."
My lady did not change her dress for dinner. The odds and ends of what
we are pleased to call full dinner-dress did not seem to be
appreciated at the Red Court. Yesterday Richard and Isaac had sat down
in their velveteen clothes. A moment before dinner Mr. Thornycroft
came into the drawing-room, and said his sons had brought in two or
three friends. My lady, meeting them in the hall, stared at their
appearance and number.
"What is it? who are they?" she whispered to Mary Anne.
"Oh, it is only one of their impromptu dinner parties," carelessly
replied Mary Anne. "I guessed they were thinking of it by their
delaying the dinner. They have supper parties instead sometimes."
My lady thought she had never seen so rough a dinner party in her
life, in the matter of dress. Richard and Isaac wore thin light
clothes, loose and easy; the strangers' costume was, to say the least
of it, varied. Old Connaught, temporarily abroad again, was wrapped in
a suit of grey flannel; the superintendent of the coastguard wore
brown; and Captain Copp had arrived in a pea-jacket. Mary Anne shook
hands with them all; Miss Derode chattered; and Mr. Thornycroft
introduced the superintendent by name to his wife--Mr. Dangerfield.
"Only six today," whispered Mary Anne to her stepmother. "Sometimes
they have a dozen."
Quite enough for the fare provided. Before Mr. Thornycroft began to
help the soles, he looked everywhere for a second dish--on the table,
on the sideboard, on the dumb waiter. "There's more fish than this,
Sinnett?" he exclaimed, hastily.
"No, sir. That's all."
Mr. Thornycroft stared his servants severally in the face, as if the
fault were theirs. Three of them were in waiting: Sinnett, a maid, and
Hyde. He then applied himself to the helping of the fish, and, by dint
of contrivance, managed to make it go round.
Well and good. Some ribs of beef came on next, fortunately a large
piece. Mr. Thornycroft let it get cold before him; he could not
imagine what the hindrance meant. Presently it struck him that the
three servants stood in their places waiting for the meat to be
served. The guests waited.
"Where are the other things, Hyde?"
"There's only that, sir."
The justice looked up the table and down the table; never in his whole
life had he felt ashamed of his hospitality until now. But by this
time the curious aspect of affairs had penetrated to Richard.
"Is this all you have to give us for dinner?" he asked of Sinnett, in
his deep, stern tones; and he did not think it necessary to lower his
voice.
"Yes, sir."
"_This!_ That piece of beef?"
"There's nothing else, sir."
"By whose management?--by whose fault? Speak, woman."
"My lady gave the orders, sir."
Richard turned his dark face on my lady, as if demanding whether
Sinnett was not telling a lie; and Mr. Thornycroft began to cut the
beef as fast as he could cut it.
"I did not anticipate that we should have friends with us," murmured
the new mistress. She felt truly uncomfortable, really sorry for the
contretemps; all eyes were turned upon her, following the dark
condemning ones of Richard.
"We must make the best of our beef; there are worse misfortunes at
sea," said Isaac, his good-natured voice breaking the silence. "You
will judge of our appetites better when you get more used to us," he
added to my lady with a kind smile.
"I should think there is worse misfortunes at sea," observed Captain
Copp, forgetting his grammar in his wish to smooth the unpleasantness.
"Bless and save my wooden leg! if us sailors had such a glorious piece
of beef to sit down to of a day on the long voyages, we should not
hear quite so much of hardships. I remember once--it was the very
voyage before the one when I saw that sea-serpent in the Pacific--our
tins of preserved meat turned bad, and an awful gale we met washed
away our live stock. Ah, you should have been with us then, Mr.
Richard; you'd never despise a piece of prime beef again."
Richard vouchsafed no answer: he had been thoroughly vexed. Captain
Copp, seated at my lady's right hand, asked her to take wine with him,
and then took it with the table generally.
My lady got away as soon as she could: hardly knowing whether to
resent the advent of the visitors, the free and easy hospitality
that appeared to prevail at the Red Court, or her own mistake in not
having provided better. With that dark resolute face of power in her
mind--Richard's--instinct whispered her that it would not answer to
draw the reins too tight. At any rate, she felt uncomfortable at the
table, and quitted it.
Leaving Miss Thornycroft and mademoiselle to go where they pleased,
she went up at once to her chamber: a roomy apartment facing the sea.
By its side was a small dressing-room, or boudoir; with a pleasant
window to sit at on a summer's day. It was night now, but my lady
threw up the window, and remained at it. A mist was arising out at
sea: not much as yet. She was musing on the state of affairs. Had she
made a mistake in coming to the Red Court for life? Early days as yet
to think so, but a doubt of it lay upon her spirit.
The subdued tones of the piano underneath were echoing to the
beautiful touch of Mademoiselle Derode; the soft, light touch that she
had not been able to impart to her pupil. Mary Anne Thornycroft's
playing, though clear, brilliant, and good, was, like herself, firm
and decisive. You never heard the low melodious music from her that
charms the heart to sweet sadness, rather than wins the ear and the
admiration.
Suddenly, as my lady stood listening and musing, a figure, very dim
and shadowy, appeared on the edge of the plateau, and she strained
her eyes on it with a start.
Not of fear; she had no superstition in her hard composition, and all
she felt was curiosity--surprise. Mademoiselle Derode might have given
utterance to a faint scream, and scuttered away where she could not
see the plateau, in dread belief that the ghost was walking. My lady
had the good sense to know that a figure, shadowy by this light, might
be very substantial by daylight. All in a moment she lost sight of it.
It appeared to be standing still on the plateau's edge, whether
looking this way or over the sea, her far sight, remarkably keen,
could not tell her, but as she looked the figure disappeared. It was
gone, so, far as she could see; certainly it did not walk either to
the right or the left. For a brief instant my lady wondered whether it
had fallen over the cliff--as the poor coastguard-man had once done.
Footsteps underneath. Some one was crossing the garden, apparently
having come from the direction of the plateau, and making for the
solitary door in the dead wall at the unused end of the house; the end
that she had been warned could not welcome ladies. TO her intense
surprise she recognised her husband, but dressed differently from what
he had been at dinner. The black frock coat (his usual attire) was
replaced by one of common velveteen, the gaiters were buttoned over
the pantaloons, the customary hat by a disreputable wide-awake. Where
could he have been?--when she had thought him busy with his guests!
The mist was extending to the land very rapidly; my lady shut down the
window in haste and descended the stairs. The drawing-room windows
were open, and she rang the bell for them to be closed. In those few
moments the mist had increased so greatly that she could not see
halfway across the garden. It was almost like an instantaneous cloud
of blight.
"Mr. Thornycroft has left the dining-room," she observed to Hyde, as
he was shutting the windows. "Have the people gone?"
"No, my lady. I have just taken in the pipes and spirits."
"Pipes and spirits! Do they smoke at these impromptu dinner
gatherings--and drink spirits?"
"Generally," answered Hyde.
"But Mr. Thornycroft is not with them? I saw him out of doors."
Hyde, his windows and shutters closed, turned round to face her, and
spoke with emphasis.
"The justice is in the dining-room, my lady. He does not quit it when
he has friends with him."
Believing the man told her a lie, for her own sight was perfectly
reliable sight--at least it had been so hitherto--she determined to
satisfy herself. Waiting until he had gone, she crossed the hall,
opened the dining-room door an inch and peeped in. Hyde was right.
There sat Mr. Thornycroft in his place at the foot of the table,
almost close to her, in the same dress he had worn at dinner, a long
churchwarden's pipe in his mouth, and a steaming glass of something
hot before him.
----------
"What will you allow me for housekeeping, Mr. Thornycroft?" she asked
in the morning.
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Nothing," repeated the justice in his firmest tone, decisive as
Richard's. She was taking her breakfast languidly in her room. It
was eleven o'clock, but she had a headache, she said: the truth
being that my lady liked to lie in bed. Mr. Thornycroft, coming in,
condoled with her in his hearty manner, never believing but the plea
was genuine--the straightforward country gentleman would as soon have
believed Captain Copp's wooden leg to be a real one, as a headache
false. He entered on the matter he came to speak of, the dinner of
yesterday. Kindly enough, but very emphatically, he warned her that
such a thing must not occur a second time. It had been altogether a
mistake.
"Any money you may wish for yourself, for your own purposes, is yours
heartily," he resumed; "but in the housekeeping you must not
interfere. The cost is my care, and Sinnett sees to it: she has been
in the house so long as to know perfectly well how to provide. I would
have given ten pounds out of my pocket rather than have had that
happen last night," added the justice, giving a flick to his trousers'
right-hand pocket in momentary irritation at the recollection.
"But to provide such dinners is most unreasonable," she remonstrated.
"It is only for the servants to eat. I don't think you can have an
idea of the extravagance that goes on in the kitchen."
"Pooh! Extravagance! I can afford it. The servants only eat what goes
down from our table; and what they can't eat is given away to those
who want food. It was my father's plan before me, and it is mine."
"It is sinful waste," retorted my lady. "If you choose to sit down to
an outrageously profuse table yourself, the servants ought not to
follow suit."
"What would you have done with the superfluous victuals?" demanded the
justice. "Put up for auction of a morning and sold?"
"As you ask me what I would have done, I will answer--do not provide
them. The housekeeping is altogether on too liberal a scale."
Mr. Thornycroft, who had been looking from the window over the sea,
lying hot and clear and beautiful this morning, turned and stood
before her; his fair, handsome face grave, his towering form raised to
its full height, his voice, as he spoke, impressive in its calm
decision.
"Lady Ellis, understand one thing--that this is a matter you must not
interfere in. The housekeeping at the Red Court Farm that you are
pleased to find cause of fault with--is an established rule; so to
say, an institution. It cannot be changed. Sinnett will conduct it as
hitherto without trouble to or interference from yourself. Whenever it
does not please you to sit down to table, there are other rooms in
which you can order your dinner served."
"And suppose I say that I must exert my right of authority--my
privilege of controlling the dinners?" she rejoined, her voice getting
just a little harsh with the opposition.
"You cannot say it. I am master of my own house and my own table."
"You have made me the mistress!"
"Just so; but not to alter the established usages."
Lady Ellis tapped her foot on the soft carpet. "Do you consider that
there is any _reason_ in keeping so large a table?"
"There may or may not be. My pleasure is that it shall be kept. My
sons have been brought up to it; they would not have it curtailed."
"I think your sons have been brought up to a great deal that is
unfitting. One would think they were lords."
"Handsome, noble fellows!" aspirated the justice, with perhaps a
little spice of aggravation. "There are not many lords that can match
them."
My lady bit her thin lips, a sure sign of rising temper. "It seems to
me to be my duty, Mr. Thornycroft, exercising the authority you have
vested in me by making me your wife, to control the extravagance
hitherto running riot. Opposition, ill-feeling, in the house will not
be seemly."
"Neither will I have it," put in the justice.
"I do not see that it can be avoided. I give certain orders. Sinnett,
acting under you, opposes them. What can the result be but unseemly
contention? How would you avoid it, I ask?"
"By going to live in one of the cottages on the heath, and leaving
Isaac--I mean Richard--master of the Red Court Farm."
He spoke promptly--like a man whose mind is fully made up. The
prospect of living in a cottage on the heath nearly took my lady's
breath away.
"Mr. Thornycroft!" she passionately exclaimed, and then her tone
changed to one of peevish remonstrance: "why do you bring up
impossibilities? A cottage on the heath!"
Mr. Thornycroft brought down his hand, not in anger but emphasis, on
the small breakfast table.
"Were the order of the Red Court upset by unnecessary interference on
your part--were I to find that I could be no longer master of it
without being subjected to continual opposition, I should surely
_quit_ it. If a cottage on the heath were distasteful to you I would
take lodgings at Jutpoint."
Lady Ellis sipped her coffee. It did not appear safe to say more. A
cottage on the heath, or lodgings at Jutpoint!
"I only wished to put a stop to unnecessary extravagance," she said,
in a tone of conciliation.
"No doubt. I give you credit for good motives, of course; but these
things must be left to me. The same gentlemen who dined here yesterday
evening are coming to supper this. I have made out the bill of fare
myself, and given it to Sinnett."
"Coming again to-night!" she could not help exclaiming.
"To atone for the shortcomings of yesterday's dinner," spoke the
justice. "I never had occasion to feel ashamed of my table before."
"I cannot think what possible pleasure you can find in the society of
such men," she said, after a pause. "Look at them, coming out to
dinner in those rough coats!"
Mr. Thornycroft laughed. "We don't go in often for evening dress at
Coastdown. As to the pleasure, they have been in the habit of sitting
at my table for some years now, madam, and I enjoy the companionship."
"I fancied you left them early; I thought I saw you cross the garden,
as if coming from the plateau," she said, resolving to speak of the
matter which had so puzzled her.
"We did not leave the dining-room until eleven o'clock."
"Well--it was very strange. I was standing at this window, and
certainly saw some one exactly like you; the same figure, the same
face; but not in the same dress. He seemed to have on gaiters and a
velveteen coat, and a low broad-brimmed hat, very ugly. What should
you say it could have been?"
"I should say that you were dreaming."
"I was wide awake. It was just before that mist came on," she added.
"Ah, the fault must have lain in the mist. I have known it come as a
mirage occasionally, bringing deception and confusion."
Did he really mean it? It seemed so, for there was seriousness on his
face as he spoke. Quitting the room, he descended the stairs, and made
his way to the fields. In the four-acre mead--as it was called in
common parlance on the farm--he came upon Richard watching the
hay-makers. Richard wished him good morning; abroad early, it was the
first time he had seen his father that day.
"What was the failure, Dick?" asked the justice. "Fog," shortly
answered Richard. "Couldn't see the light."
Mr. Thornycroft nodded.
"Are we to have a repetition, sir, of yesterday's dinner table?"
resumed Richard. "If so, I think the sooner your wife is requested to
take up her residence somewhere else, the better."
"You will not have it again. Sinnett holds my orders, and my wife has
been made aware she does. There's no need for you to put yourself
out."
With the injunction, spoken rather testily, Mr. Thornycroft left him.
But a little later, when he met Isaac, he voluntarily entered on the
subject; hinting his vexation at the past, promising that it would
never again occur, almost as if he were tendering an apology for the
accident.
"I'm afraid I made a mistake, Ikey; I'm afraid I made a mistake; but I
meant it for the best."
It was ever thus. To his second son Mr. Thornycroft's behaviour was
somewhat different from what it was to his eldest. It could not be
said that he paid him more deference: but it was to Isaac he generally
spoke of business, when speaking was needed; if an opinion was
required, Isaac's was sought in preference to Richard's. It was just
as though Isaac had been the eldest son. That Richard had brought this
on himself, by his assumption of authority, was quite probable: and
the little preference seemed to spring from the justice involuntarily.
The evening supper took place, and the guests were consoled by the
ample table for the scantiness of the previous dinner. My lady was not
invited to join it; nothing appeared further from Mr. Thornycroft's
thoughts than to have ladies at table. She spent a solitary sort of
evening; Mary Anne was at Mrs. Wilkinson's, taking leave of Miss
Derode.
Was it, she asked herself, to go on like this always and always? Had
she become the wife of Justice Thornycroft only to die of the dreary
life at the Red Court Farm? Let us give her her due. When she married
him she did intend to do her duty as an honest woman, and send
ridiculous flirtations, such as that carried on with Robert Lake, to
the winds. But she did _not_ expect to be done to death of ennui.
A short while went on. Nearly open warfare set in between Mary
Anne and her stepmother. To-day my lady would be harsh, exacting,
almost cruel in her rule; tomorrow the girl would be wholly
neglected--suffered to run wild. Mr. Thornycroft saw that things could
not continue thus, and the refrain of the words he had spoken to Isaac
beat ever on his brain, day by day bringing greater force to them: "I
fear I made a mistake; I fear I made a mistake."
One morning Mary Anne astonished the justice by appearing before him
in his bureau, in what she was pleased to call the uncivilized rooms.
He sat there with Mr. Hopley, of Dartfield, some account books before
them. Her dress, a beautiful muslin with a raised blue spot, was torn
out at the gathers and trailed behind her. My lady had done it in a
passion.
"Holloa! what do you do _here?_" cried the justice, emphatically; and
Mr. Hopley went out whistling, with his hands in his pockets, and
crossed over to stare at the idle dog-cart in the coach-house, as if
to give privacy for the explanation.
She had come with one of her tales of woe. She had come to beg and
pray to be sent to school. What a change! Mr. Thornycroft was nearly
at his wits' end.
Ere the day was over, his wife brought a complaint to him on her own
score: not altogether of Mary Anne. She simply said, incidentally,
that ill-trained young lady was getting quite beyond her control, and
therefore she must wash her hands of her. The complaint was of her own
health; it appeared to be failing her in a rather remarkable manner,
certainly a sudden one. This was true. She had concluded that the air
of Coastdown was inimical to her, she wished it might be managed for
her to live away--say Cheltenham, or some other healthy place.
How eagerly Mr. Thornycroft caught at the suggestion, he felt
afterwards half ashamed to think of. In matters involving money he was
always liberal, and he at once named a handsome sum per month that she
might enjoy, at Cheltenham, or anywhere else that pleased her.
END OF VOL. I.
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Mrs. Henry Wood
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