To have a raving lunatic under the same roof with you is an experience which appeals differently to different minds. To the middle-aged it is a fact calculated to send a “cold shiver down the back,” while to the very young it suggests untold possibilities of danger and excitement.
It is not surprising, therefore, that while Mrs. Abercarne made up her mind to go as soon as she heard of the existence of Mr. Richard, to Chris this was only another inducement to stay. It was a hard matter, however, to bring her mother to her way of thinking; and when Mrs. Abercarne insisted on replacing in her trunks the things which she had begunto unpack, the young girl almost gave up hoping to change her determination.
“Now I shall go downstairs and knock at the door of the study, and explain to Mr. Bradfield how impossible it is that we should remain here under the circumstances,” said the elder lady decidedly, as she straightened the lace she wore round her neck, preparatory to making an imposing entrance into her employer’s presence.
“But, mother, you told him just now that you were not a bit frightened, and he will think you are very changeable to have altered your mind so soon.”
“I have had time to think it over,” explained her mother, rather weakly. “One does not see everything in the first minute. And it is not for myself I care. But a young girl like you must not be exposed to the vagaries of a madman, nor live in a house that is talked about.”
Chris was silent. Against those mysterious conventions which bound her mother down more tightly than prison walls, she knew that all her arguments, all her persuasions, would be powerless. With sorrowful eyes she watched her mother finish repacking, shut down the lid of the last portmanteau, and leave the room with the firm steps of a woman who had finally and firmly made up her mind.
Then Chris went into the beautiful Chinese-room, and looked lovingly round the walls, and longingly out of the window. She had never been inside a house half so nice as this, she thought, and she had not yet got over the first ecstasy of joy on finding what a beautiful place they were to have for a home. Now they would have to go back to London, she supposed; and as their own house had been given up,and the furniture sold, they would have to take cheap and dreary lodgings until they could find some other engagement. And when would they be so lucky as to find another together?
Chris was not more inclined to tears than other girls of her age, but the weight of the woes upon her gradually grew too heavy to be borne without some outward demonstration. So that, when at last the door opened to admit, as she supposed, her mother, Chris was curled up in one of the low arm-chairs by the window and could not for shame exhibit her tear-stained face.
“Oh, mother,” she sobbed, without looking up, “how can you have the heart to leave this lovely place to go back to that hateful London? We should have been so happy here; I’m sure we should!”
“There!” exclaimed a man’s gruff voice loudly, and Mr. Bradfield, for he was the intruder, burst into a loud, ironical laugh.
Chris sprang up and dried her eyes hastily, overwhelmed with confusion.
Her mother, not so fleet of foot as the man, was only just entering the room. Her face wore an expression of great vexation.
“There!” repeated Mr. Bradfield, as soon as he could speak. “Did you hear that, madam? You should have coached your daughter up better. You come and tell me that you would be glad to stay in my house, but that your daughter is so much frightened that she insists on leaving immediately; and I come up here, take the young lady unawares, and hear her beg not to be taken away! How do you reconcile the two things, Mrs. Abercarne? Answer me that, madam.”
Even Mrs. Abercarne had no answer ready. Chris came to her mother’s rescue.
“My mother is quite right,” she said. “I should not care to stay here, although it is such a beautiful place, now that I know there is a person shut up here. I should always be afraid of his getting out.”
Mr. Bradfield stamped his foot impatiently. Since he had been a rich man he had been used to finding a way out of every difficulty, a way to indulge every whim.
“I have told you both that there is no danger; that this unfortunate young man is absolutely harmless and inoffensive. You shall hear what his attendant says.”
Mr. Bradfield rang the bell sharply, and told the servant, who quickly appeared at the summons, to send Stelfox to him. In the meantime, without any further remarks either to mother or daughter, he strode up and down the room with his hands behind him, and his eyes on the carpet.
In a few minutes there was a knock at the door, and the man who had told the housemaid that Mr. Richard “was quiet now” came in.
Jim Stelfox was a man about forty-five years of age, rather above the medium height, with an open, honest, and withal resolute-looking face, and a straightforward look of the eyes which spoke of obstinacy as well as honesty. His hair, which was still thick, was iron-grey; so were his trim whiskers. His eyes were grey also, hard and keen; his mouth was straight, and shut very firmly.
He waited, with his eyes fixed upon his master, respectfully, to be interrogated.
“How many years have you been in my employment, Stelfox?” asked Mr. Bradfield.
“Seventeen years, sir.”
“And how many years is it now since you’ve had charge of Mr. Richard?”
“Ten years, sir, on and off; and seven years altogether,” answered Stelfox.
Mr. Bradfield’s manner grew harsher, more dictatorial with every succeeding question, almost as if each answer of the man’s had been a fresh offence. But Stelfox’s manner never changed; it was always respectful, stolid and studiously monotonous. The next question Mr. Bradfield put in a louder, angrier voice than ever.
“And have you ever, in the course of all that time, known Mr. Richard do any harm to man, woman or child?”
For about two seconds the man did not answer; two seconds in which Chris, rendered curious by something in the manner of master and man towards each other, awaited quite eagerly some astonishing reply. She was disappointed. The answer came as smoothly and quietly as ever:
“Never, sir.”
Mr. Bradfield turned impatiently to the two ladies.
“You hear,” he said triumphantly. “Here is the testimony of a man who has been in constant attendance upon him for seven years, and in partial attendance upon him for three more. Can you have stronger evidence than that?”
“It is quite satisfactory, I am sure,” murmured Mrs. Abercarne, who had not the courage to face this overbearing man with questions and doubts.
But Chris was different. Although she longed to stay, although the lunatic, harmless or otherwise,caused her no fears, she “wanted to know, you know.” There was some mystery, trivial, no doubt, about Mr. Richard and his guardian and his keeper.
The manner of the two men towards each other, the furtive, yet impatient glances with which the master regarded the man, the studiously monotonous and mechanical tone in which the man replied to the master, showed that they were not quite honest either towards the other, or else towards her mother and herself. At least, this was what Chris thought, and without pausing to consider how her question might be received, she broke out:
“But, Mr. Bradfield, if he is harmless, why do you shut him up?”
Mrs. Abercarne, although she had not dared to put this question herself, looked gratefully at her daughter, and curiously at her employer. He hesitated a moment, and Chris saw Stelfox glance at his master with an expression of some amusement.
“Well,” said Mr. Bradfield at last, rather impatiently, “I am afraid we should none of us find the poor fellow a very desirable companion. He is very noisy, for one thing.”
Now both the ladies had had occasion to find out that this latter statement was true, at any rate, so they were silent for a minute. Then Chris, not yet satisfied, spoke again.
“You know,” and she turned to Stelfox, “that my mother and I heard you struggling with him, and when you came out we heard you say he was quiet now, as if you had had some trouble with him. How was that if he was so harmless?”
Again Stelfox glanced at his master, and Chris,following his look, noticed that Mr. Bradfield had become deadly white. He stamped impatiently on the floor as he caught his servant’s eye.
“Oh,” said Stelfox, after a few seconds’ pause, “that was only his rough play.”
“Then I don’t wonder you keep him shut up,” said Chris, drily.
Mr. Bradfield stared at her with a frown on his face. But Chris did not care. They were going away, so she could speak out her mind. There was a pause for some moments, and then Mrs. Abercarne began to fidget a little, being anxious to get away. Mr. Bradfield’s frown cleared away as he watched Chris, and at last he said, quite good-humouredly:
“You’re an impudent little piece of goods. And so you are going to let my madman frighten you away?”
Chris glanced at her mother. Then she turned boldly, with her hands behind her, and faced him.
“Not if it rested with me, Mr. Bradfield.”
He was evidently delighted by her answer, and began to chuckle good-humouredly as he signed to Stelfox to leave the room.
“So you would brave the bogies, would you? And it is only this haughty mother of yours who stands in the way of our all being happy together. Now, come, Mrs. Abercarne, can you resist the appeal of youth and beauty?Icouldn’t.”
Mrs. Abercarne, keen-witted as she thought herself, had not noticed so much as Chris had done in the interview between master and man. On the other hand she had taken careful note of the manner in which Mr. Bradfield regarded Chris. And prudence began to whisper that in leaving Wyngham House shemight be throwing away a chance of establishing her daughter in a rather magnificent manner.
So she laughed gently and showed a disposition to temporise. Whereupon Mr. Bradfield seized his advantage, laid much stress upon the comfort her presence would bestow upon a lonely bachelor, and upon the distinguished service her superintendence of his household would render him. And Chris joining in his pleading with eloquent eyes and a few incoherent words, they succeeded between them in inducing the elder lady to accede to their wishes.
His object once gained, Mr. Bradfield wasted no further time with them, but disappeared quickly with his usual nod of farewell.
Chris, anxious not to leave her mother time to waver, ran across the corridor to their bedroom, unpacked their trunks with rapid hands, and rang the bell for a house-maid to take the trunks themselves away to one of the lumber-rooms, so that Mrs. Abercarne might feel that she had burnt her ships.
Then Chris peeped into the Chinese-room, saw her mother busy at the writing-table, and guessed that she was writing to inform one of her friends of her definite arrangement to stay at Wyngham. Chris thought it would be better not to interrupt her, so she softly closed the door and went down the corridor to make a private inspection of the pictures to fill up the time.
In one of the odd little passages which branched off to the right and left from the corridor, she came upon a picture which seemed to her rather more interesting than the rest; for it was a figure subject, while the rest were chiefly landscapes. The passage was so dark that it was only by opening the door ofone of the rooms to which it led that she could see the picture with any distinctness; and it was while she was standing on tip-toe to examine it that the sound of stealthy footsteps reached her ears. Peeping out from the nook in which she was hidden, Chris saw at the entrance of the wing the house Mr. Bradfield standing in front of the door of “Mr. Richard’s rooms.” He was stooping low with his ear to the crack of the door, and his dark face wore an expression of intense anxiety. She had scarcely had time to notice these things when Stelfox came up with absolutely silent footsteps behind his master. His face wore the same expression of hard suppressed amusement which she had noticed on one occasion in the Chinese-room. He did not speak to his master, but stood waiting in a respectful attitude and without uttering a sound. Chris thought the whole scene rather strange, and instead of retreating at once, as she should have done, she kept her eyes fixed upon the pair, from her distant corner, a few moments longer.
So she saw Mr. Bradfield raise his head and turn to walk away; she saw him start at the sight of Stelfox, and utter an angry exclamation.
But this was eavesdropping, so she drew back hastily out of sight and hearing.
Chris could not, however, get out of her mind the thought that Mr. Bradfield’s behaviour was very odd, and that Stelfox’s action in waiting coolly there without a word was more odd still.
To Mrs. Abercarne’s surprise and disappointment, but very much to the relief of Chris, the ladies saw but little of Mr. Bradfield in the first days of their sojourn at Wyngham House. Apart from this, which she considered rather disrespectful and decidedly unappreciative, the elder lady had little to complain of. She found herself absolute mistress of the establishment, with no one to interfere with her, no one to dispute her orders. The word had evidently gone forth that her will was to be law, and her power in every department of the household was unlimited. The only thing she ever wanted in vain was an interview with the master of the house. If she knocked at the door of the study, he answered politely from within that he was busy, and requested her to let him know what she wanted by letter. Then she would write an elaborately courteous note concerning the dismissal of a servant, or a necessary outlay in repairs. His answer was always short, and always to the same effect: she was to do exactly what she pleased, and the expense was immaterial.
With her complaints to Chris that they had very little of his society, her daughter had no sympathy whatever. She did not care for Mr. Bradfield; she was rather afraid of him, and to enjoy his house without his presence was, to her thinking, anabsolutely perfect condition of things. It was not to continue indefinitely, however.
Mrs. Abercarne, whose respect for the old china about the house was at least as great as that of its possessor, had assigned to her daughter the duty of dusting and taking care of it. The sight of old Dresden in the hands of the common domestic parlour-maid made her shiver, she said.
So every morning it was the task of Chris to make what she called the grand tour, armed with a pair of dust-bellows and a duster, and provided with an old pair of gloves to keep her hands, as her mother said, “like those of a gentlewoman.”
One morning when she had got as far as the drawing-room, and was blowing the dust from a Sèvres cup and saucer, her eye was caught by a canterbury full of music which stood beside the piano. Mother was busy in the basement; Mr. Bradfield was never anywhere near. So Chris slipped off her gloves and went down on her knees and turned over the music to see what it was like. She had the carpet about her well strewn before she found anything to her liking. Then, having come upon a book of ancient dance music, she opened the piano and began, very softly, to try an old waltz tune. She had played very few bars when the door opened and Mr. Bradfield looked in.
Chris started up crimson, feeling that she had done something very dreadful. She thought he would burst out into some rude remark about the strumming disturbing him; but he only strolled as far as the fireplace, which was half-way towards her, put his hands behind his back, nodded, and said:
“Go on.”
As he did not smile or speak very kindly, Chris found it impossible to obey. She thought, indeed, that the command was given ironically.
“I—I was only trying a few bars. I—I am very sorry I disturbed you. But I didn’t know you could hear. I thought you were deaf,” stammered Chris.
Mr. Bradfield looked up at her with a slight frown. No man approaching fifty cares to be reminded, especially by a pretty young woman, of the infirmities which must inevitably overtake him before many years are over.
“Deaf! Thought I was deaf? Pray what made you think that?”
“Well,” said Chris, “mother and I both thought you must be, because she so often knocks at your study door, and you don’t hear her.”
Mr. Bradfield’s countenance cleared, and a twinkle appeared in his eyes.
“Oh! ah! No; very likely not.” Then he chuckled to himself, and added good-humouredly, “Your mother’s a joke, isn’t she?”
Chris was taken aback, and for the first moment she could make no answer. So Mr. Bradfield went on:
“Of course, I don’t mean anything at all disrespectful to the old lady. She makes a splendid head of a household; servants say she’s a regular tar—er—er—a regular darling. But, well, she’s a trifle chilling, now, isn’t she?”
“My mother is not very effusive in her manners towards people she doesn’t know very well,” answered Chris, with some constraint.
“That’s just what I meant,” said Mr. Bradfield,looking up at the ceiling. “And not knowing me very well, she’s not very effusive to me.”
Chris, who had seated herself on the music-stool, drew herself up primly. She could not allow her mother to be laughed at.
“I think it’s better for people to improve upon acquaintance, instead of making themselves so very sweet and charming at first, that they can’t even keep it up.”
Mr. Bradfield raised his eyebrows.
“Have I been so sweet and charming, then, that you’re afraid that I can’t keep it up?”
“No, indeed you haven’t,” replied Chris promptly, with an irrepressible little laugh.
“That’s all right. What were you doing in here?” he went on, looking at the gloves she was drawing on her hands, and at the duster and dust-bellows she had picked up again.
“I was dusting the ornaments.”
“What on earth did you want to do that for? Isn’t there a houseful of servants to do all that sort of thing?”
“My mother says the care of old china is a lady’s work, not a servant’s. She would think it wicked to leave such a duty to the maids.”
“Well, I don’t like to see you do it. It looks as if you were expected to do parlour-maids’ work, which you’re not.”
Chris, with a little flush of curiosity and excitement, rose from her seat, and drummed softly with her gloved finger-tips on the top of the piano. She saw the opportunity to satisfy herself on a point which had been occupying her mind.
“What am I expected to do, then, Mr. Bradfield? That’s just what I want to know.”
Mr. Bradfield looked rather amused, and did not at once reply.
“That’s what you want to know, is it?” said he at last.
“Yes. Why did you advertise for a ‘mother and daughter,’ unless you had something for the daughter to do?”
There was a short pause, during which Mr. Bradfield looked at her, and chuckled quietly, as if she amused him.
“Upon my soul, I hardly know. I think I had some sort of a notion that a woman with a daughter would settle down more contentedly, and—and wouldn’t be so likely to—to give way to bad habits.” Here Mr. Bradfield pulled himself up suddenly, recollecting that what he had really feared was an undue predilection for his old port. “You see,” he went on hastily, “I had no idea that I should have the luck to get such a—such a—well, such a magnificent person as your mother to condescend to keep house for me in my humble little home. When I advertised, I had no idea of getting my advertisement answered by a—a——”
Chris nodded intelligently.
“I see,” said she cheerfully. “What mamma calls a ‘gentlewoman.’”
“That’s it exactly. And it means a woman who is not gentle to anybody out of her own ‘set,’ doesn’t it?”
Poor Chris wanted to laugh, but was too loyal to her mother to indulge the inclination. But Mr. Bradfield caught the little convulsive sound which intimated that she was amused, and he beamed upon her more benignantly than he had done yet.
“I see, then,” she began, in the preternaturally solemn tone of one who has been caught in unseemly hilarity, “that I am here on false pretences, as it were. If I had not been a—a ‘gentlewoman’”—again she suppressed a giggle—“you would have had no scruple about my making myself useful.”
Mr. Bradfield, evidently delighted by the view the girl took of things, came a little nearer to the piano.
“Youarea sensible girl,” he said, with admiration. “Now, if your mother were like you——” he went on regretfully, and stopped.
“If she were, you wouldn’t have your house kept so well,” said Chris, merrily. “I’m no use at all in a house, everybody always says. They used to make me play dance music, because there was nothing else I could do.”
“Dance music!” echoed Mr. Bradfield hopefully. “I thought you young ladies never condescended to anything beneath a sonata?”
Chris laughed.
“I don’t, if my mother can help it,” she confessed. “She says a correct taste in music is one of the signs of a gentlewoman, and she makes me study Beethoven and Brahms until I have cultivated a splendid taste for—Sullivan and Lecocq.”
“Does she like the sonatas herself?”
“Shesaysso; but, then, all ladies with grown-up daughters say that. And she takes me to very dull concerts, of nothing but severely classical music. And she pretends she isn’t bored; but, oh! the relief which appears in her poor, dear face when they drop into a stray little bit of tune!”
Mr. Bradfield put his head back and roared with laughter.
“I suppose,” he said at last, wistfully, “she wouldn’t let you come down here sometimes in the evening and play something frivolous, something lively?”
Chris hesitated.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Of course, we would have her down here too,” he explained. “And when she felt that she couldn’t get on any longer without a dose of Bach, you might indulge her, you know.”
Chris, who looked pleased at the prospect, suddenly thought of a difficulty.
“But, Mr. Bradfield,” she suggested diffidently, “this music you have here, of course it’s very nice, very nice indeed, but it’s not quite the latest. ‘The Mabel Waltz’ and ‘Les Cloches du Monastère’ are not new, you know.”
“We’ll soon set that right,” said Mr. Bradfield, as he looked at the clock and then at his watch. “I’ll wire up to some of the big music shops, and by to-morrow or the day after we’ll have all the latest things.”
He disappeared with his usual nod, leaving Chris in a state of high excitement. She rushed upstairs to see whether her mother, who had forbidden her to visit her during her morning work in the housekeeper’s room, had come up yet.
As she passed the door of the study it opened suddenly, and Mr. Bradfield appeared. He was much struck by the change in her appearance which had taken place in a few minutes since he had left her in the drawing-room. The restraint of his presence once removed, she had given herself up to the wildest excitement, and her face was aglow. She looked so pretty that Mr. Bradfield stared at her with freshinterest. She was trying to run away when he stopped her by saying:
“Where are you going to in such a hurry?”
“Upstairs to tell my mother about the music,” she answered shyly.
Still he detained her, finding her much more attractive than his accounts.
“Did you ever have a sweetheart?” he asked, after a little pause.
Chris burst out laughing at this ridiculously ingenuous question. Mr. Bradfield repeated it, and this time she answered with delightful frankness.
“Why, I have had a dozen.”
It was his turn to be taken aback.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, with new diffidence, “we must try to find you one here, then.”
Chris shot at him one merry glance, and then looked demurely at the floor.
“You needn’t trouble yourself to do that, Mr. Bradfield, thank you. I can find one for myself if I want one, I daresay.”
And, refusing to be detained any longer, she went upstairs, meeting her mother in the corridor above.
“Mother—mother, who was the idiot that said riches don’t bring happiness?”
It was two days after the interview Chris had had with Mr. Bradfield in the drawing-room, and the new music had come. Mr. Bradfield, who had on several occasions during the past two days caught sight of Chris, but failed to get a word with her, had sent up a message to the effect that if Mrs. and Miss Abercarne would go down to the drawing-room, they would find something there which would interest one of them.
So they went down to the great room, which was cold, with a recently-lighted fire in each of the two grates, and dimly lighted, for there was no gas, and the illumination consisted of a dozen wax candles. Chris, who had put on a dress square in the neck, in honour of the occasion, in spite of her mother’s warnings, shivered, but the sight of the great pile of music on two tables in the middle of the room made her forget the cold.
Mrs. Abercarne sighed at her daughter’s exclamations. She felt very much inclined to echo the sentiment. Certainly her own happiness had belonged to the time when she had been well off, before frocks had to be turned, and last year’s bonnets furbished up.
Mr. Bradfield had not yet come in from the dining-room, so Chris could chatter on at her ease.
“To think of being able to get everything onewanted, just by sending to town for it. No question whether it costs sixpence or ten pounds. To be able to look into the windows without considering that four and elevenpence three farthings is five shillings. Oh! mother,” and she pounced upon a waltz, and a song, and a gavotte, which she felt sure she should like, “I feel as if I were living in an enchanted palace, and as if Mr. Bradfield were the good fairy.”
“Mr. Bradfield is very much obliged to you, I’m sure,” said the owner of the house, who had come in very quietly, attracted by the sound of her bright voice from the adjoining room, “It’s a more flattering comparison than you made to me at first, if I remember rightly.”
But Chris was too happy to be troubled by this reminiscence.
“That was nothing to what you may expect if you come upon me without warning when I don’t feel very good,” said she.
“Let us hear some of the music, Chris,” said her mother, afraid that the girl’s sauciness might offend the great man.
But Mr. Bradfield was inclined to take everything the young girl said in good part. He even offered to turn the leaves of her music, with apologies for his clumsiness, which was indeed extreme. Chris, who, although not a performer of special excellence, read music well and with spirit, was in an ecstasy of girlish enjoyment, and she communicated the contagion to her older companions. Mr. Bradfield was good humour itself; Mrs. Abercarne was the perfection of graciousness. He hunted out some old photographic albums, the portraits of which she inspected minutelythrough her double eye-glasses, with the most flattering comments imagination could suggest.
“You needn’t be so polite unless you really like it,” he said, drily, when she had just found the word “intellectual” to describe a very grim female face; “they’re only relations.”
Mrs. Abercarne looked up in astonishment.
“All these are your relations? You must have a great many, then?”
“Swarms of ’em.”
Mrs. Abercarne looked through her eyeglasses, no longer at the photographs, but at him.
“I should have thought among so many you might have found someone to manage your establishment without having to advertise,” she suggested.
Mr. Bradfield laughed.
“So I could. I could have found a hundred. Some to manage my establishment, some to manage me, some to do both. And then all those whom I had not selected would have come down upon me in a body, and my life wouldn’t have been worth a year’s purchase among them. It won’t be worth much when they find you are here, you and Miss Christina. I shouldn’t be surprised if they were to set fire to the house and burn us all up together.”
Mrs. Abercarne began to look frightened, while Chris was immensely amused.
“Even money, you see, Miss Christina,” he went on, turning to the girl, who indeed engrossed most of his attention, “doesn’t keep you free from all worries.”
“It does from the worst of them, though,” said Chris, sagely. “It saves you from all the little ones, which are much worse to bear every day than one big one now and then. Who wouldn’t rather have onebad attack of typhoid fever and have done with it than have, say toothache, every day? You can’t understand how much worse it is to deny yourself every day things which cost a penny, than to resist, once in a way, the temptation to spend a sovereign.”
Mr. Bradfield was looking at her intently.
“At any rate,” said he, with some wrath in his tone, “as long as you remain here, the sovereigns as well as the pennies will be forthcoming as often as they are wanted.”
Here Mrs. Abercarne thought fit to interpose majestically:
“My daughter was only using those particular terms as an illustration,” she said, in a suave manner; “as a matter of fact, neither the pennies nor the sovereigns are matters that concern her.”
Both Mr. Bradfield and Chris accepted this rebuke in silence; but they exchanged a look, and poor Chris could not help remembering Mr. Bradfield’s remark that her mother was a joke.
“At the same time,” went on Mrs. Abercarne, conscious that she had somewhat checked the evening’s pleasure, “I must confess that whatever cares one may have seem lighter when borne in a mansion like this, surrounded by treasures of art, and evidences of high culture.”
Mr. Bradfield tried to look as if he appreciated the compliment, and Chris, feeling that the atmosphere was growing frigid again, made a diversion.
“Indeed, Mr. Bradfield,” said she, “we’re never tired of looking at your beautiful things. Only all the cabinets and cupboards are always locked up, and it is very tantalising not to know what’s inside.”
“Well, here are my keys,” said he, as he took from his pocket a large bunch of various sizes. “Open anything you like; there is no Blue Beard’s chamber here.”
Perhaps they thought this remark rather unfortunate, with the knowledge they all had of the locked rooms in the east wing. At any rate, there was an awkward pause as Chris took the keys. He hastened to add:
“There are no rooms in this house, except, of course, poor Dick’s, which you may not ransack as much as you like.”
“Thank you,” said Chris, as she ran to a handsome inlaid cabinet, with a locked cupboard in the centre; “I’m going to take you at your word, and begin here.”
She opened the carved doors, and found a collection of rare coins, which excited in her only a languid interest. Then she examined the contents of a pair of engraved caskets which stood on a side table. Lastly, the shelves of a locked cupboard under a rosewood book-case engaged her attention.
Here she found something more attractive to her frivolous mind. Hidden away at the back of the bottom shelf was an old cardboard box, containing a miscellaneous collection of portraits, pencil-sketches, faded daguerreotypes, and a few miniatures on ivory.
One of these last attracted her at once in a very strong degree. It was the portrait of a young man, fair, clean-shaven and strikingly handsome, with features slightly aquiline, blue eyes, and an expression which seemed to Chris to denote sweet temper and refinement in equal degrees. She was a long wayfrom her two companions when she discovered the portrait; for the bookcase under which the cupboard was occupied a remote corner of the back drawing-room, while her mother and Mr. Bradfield were sitting by the fire in the front room.
She sat so long quietly looking at the miniature, that Mr. Bradfield’s attention was attracted.
“Our flibbertigibbet has grown very quiet,” said he at last. “I wonder what mischief she is up to!”
As he spoke, he rose softly from his chair, walked on tip-toe to the other end of the room, and peeped round the partition, part of which still remained between the front and the back room. Chris saw him, and started.
“We’ve caught her in the very act, Mrs. Abercarne!” he cried. “Guilt on every feature!”
Indeed, Chris had blushed a little, and thrust the portrait quickly back on the shelf.
“I was only looking at a picture,” she explained quickly. And the next moment, seized by an idea, she snatched up the miniature and held it towards Mr. Bradfield.
“It looks like a portrait,” said she. “Do you know who it is?”
As she held up the picture, she saw a change in Mr. Bradfield’s face. It was too dark in this back room to see whether he lost colour; but an expression of what was certainly annoyance, mingled with something that looked like terror, passed over his face. It was gone in a moment, and he answered her calmly enough.
“No,” said he, “I don’t know who he is. I daresay I bought it in a collection of miniatures.”
Chris turned it over in her hand.
“Oh! here’s the name, I suppose,” she said; “‘Gilbert Wryde, 1847.’”
Again, as she glanced up quickly, and rather curiously, she saw the same sort of look for a couple of seconds on Mr. Bradfield’s face. But he answered in a tone just as unmoved as before.
“Perhaps it’s only the name of the artist who painted it. I should think the date was right, by the costume. Are you fond of miniatures? I have a splendid collection in one of the rooms upstairs. I will show you them to-morrow, if you like.”
“Thank you. I don’t know that I do care for them so very much. But I like that one. The face is an interesting one.”
“I think they used to flatter the sitter a little in the days when people had themselves painted like that,” said Mr. Bradfield. “I daresay, now, an artist of those days would have done the fairy’s trick, and transformed the beast into a prince. And now, will you let us have that song from ‘Utopia’ once more before Mrs. Abercarne carries you off?”
Chris rose at once, returned him his keys, and went to the piano. She sang the song he had asked for, received Mr. Bradfield’s enthusiastic thanks, and noticed that he seemed in higher spirits than he had been all the evening. He gave Mrs. Abercarne her candle, bowed her out of the room, and contrived to detain Chris a moment longer.
“We must absolutely find you that sweetheart,” said he, in a low voice, and in rather wistful tones. “You will be dull in this outlandish place without one.”
“You must absolutely leave me to do as I like about that, Mr. Bradfield,” replied Chris, saucily. “And I am never dull anywhere.”
“I wish I could say the same of myself,” said he, heartily.
And then he let her go, wishing her good-night with some constraint, which she, used to admiration from young and old, did not fail to notice.
She ran upstairs, and joined her mother at the door of their room. Mrs. Abercarne looked at the girl as soon as they got inside the door.
“What was Mr. Bradfield saying to you, Chris?” she asked, with apparent indifference, as she took from her head the scrap of old point lace which she thought proper to wear by way of a cap.
“Oh, he said he must get me a sweetheart, and I told him he might save himself the trouble,” said she, lightly. “Don’t you think it very silly of him to say those things to me, mother?”
Mrs. Abercarne paused a moment, and then answered, thoughtfully:
“I think he means to be kind. He always speaks as if he took an interest in you—a great interest.”
Chris glanced quickly at her mother.
“An interest! Oh, yes,” said she.
Then there was another short silence, during which Chris knelt in front of the fireplace and stared intently at the red coals.
“You don’t seem very grateful, dear!”
The girl started.
“Grateful! I? What for?” she asked stupidly.
“Why, Chris, you are in the clouds! What, were you thinking about Mr. Bradfield?”
“Mr. Bradfield!” echoed the young girl, with a laugh of derision. “No, mother; I was thinking about that face in the miniature.”
Her mother laughed, rather contemptuously.
“I shouldn’t waste many thoughts upon a portrait painted forty years ago!” she said somewhat scornfully. “Why, child, the idea of growing sentimental about a man who, if he is still alive, must be seventy if he is a day!”
“Sentimental!” echoed Chris. “Did I speak sentimentally? I did not know it. But—I should like to know something about the man whose portrait it was. It was an interesting face, mother. I will show it you to-morrow, and you shall judge for yourself whether I am not right.”
Mrs. Abercarne, seeing that the girl was too much occupied in thinking of the picture to give her attention to anything else, gave up her attempt to sound her on another subject, and talked about the music until they both went to sleep.
On the following day, when Chris was in the drawing-room with her duster, she remembered the fascinating miniature, and thought she would like to have another look at it by daylight. So she went into the back drawing-room, remembering that she had forgotten to lock the cupboard door when she handed back his keys to Mr. Bradfield.
Someone had been there before her, however, for the door was now securely locked. Chris was vexed at this, and gave the door an impatient little shake. The cupboard was old, and the bolt gave way under this rough handling. She had not expected this, but, as it had happened, she felt justified in taking advantage of the occurrence, for Mr. Bradfield had given her permission to examine what she pleased.
Opening the door, therefore, she took out the box, which had been replaced at the back of its shelf, and turned out the contents in search of the miniature.She took out every separate thing, she thoroughly examined not only that shelf but the others; and then she shut the cupboard, disappointed and puzzled.
The miniature was no longer there.
Chris thought this incident very strange. She pondered it in her mind, and mentioned it to her mother in a manner which showed that she considered it a suspicious one.
Mrs. Abercarne looked at the matter differently. There were a thousand reasons, any one of which might be the right one in this case, why a gentleman should choose to transfer some object in his possession from one place of safe keeping to another. It might be the portrait of an old friend——
“But he said he didn’t know who it was,” objected Chris.
“Well, it may be a particularly good painting, so that he may wish to add it to the collection of miniatures upstairs which he spoke of,” said Mrs. Abercarne, who now showed herself ready at all times to take Mr. Bradfield’s part. “Or perhaps,” she hazarded, with a rapid glance at the girl’s face, “he did not quite like your taking such a strong interest in the portrait of another gentleman.”
“Indeed, I don’t see how that could concern him,” returned Chris, coldly.
The young girl quite understood these allusions on her mother’s part to Mr. Bradfield’s evident admiration. But she would not allow the subject to bementioned; and her mother, who, poor lady, was not unnaturally delighted at the prospect she thought she discerned of marrying her pretty daughter well, thought it wiser not to precipitate matters.
For already the bird seemed to have taken fright, and grown shy, as if seeing or suspecting a snare. Mr. Bradfield was always trying to waylay Chris for the sake of a few moments’ talk with her, and always failing in the attempt. At last he complained to Mrs. Abercarne in terms which almost amounted to a declaration of the state of his feelings with regard to her.
“She is young and wilful,” answered the mother, who thought that this shyness on the girl’s part was likely to give a wholesome stimulus to the gentleman’s attachment. “I don’t think she takes any serious views of life at present. Better not to speak to her just yet on any matter more momentous than concerts and dances.”
“Dances!” echoed Mr. Bradfield, dubiously. “Is she dull down here, then? I hope she is not too fond of balls and gaiety?”
“Not more fond than a girl ought to be,” answered Mrs. Abercarne, promptly. She had no notion of tying her daughter to a man who would not let her enjoy herself as she liked. If Mr. Bradfield wanted a young wife with the tastes of an old one, he must give up all thought of marrying Chris. “She is a good waltzer, and loves a dance.”
Mr. Bradfield looked rather morose, rather crestfallen.
“Well,” he said at last, “I’ll give a ball at Christmas. The worst of it is, that a host of my confounded relations will insist upon coming, and—andif they have their suspicions roused, there’ll be the —— to pay!”
“Then, if you are so much afraid of your relations, Mr. Bradfield, I should study them by all means,” said Mrs. Abercarne, loftily, as she left him upon the excuse that she had some work to do.
He growled to himself that he would have nothing more to do than he was obliged with either arrogant mother or flighty daughter; but he failed lamentably to keep his resolution. The girl’s pretty face and lively manners had enslaved him, and try as he would, this middle-aged gentleman could not conquer the foolish longing to become the husband of a woman twenty-five years younger than himself.
Meanwhile, Chris was unconsciously doing her utmost to keep alive the admiration of her elderly admirer, by being as happy as the day was long. And as happiness is becoming, the glimpses Mr. Bradfield caught of her bright face and lithe figure were daily more tantalising. Mr. Bradfield was not vain enough to think that he should get this beautiful young girl to fall in love with him, at any rate before marriage. He reckoned on the absence of rivalry, and on her great and increasing affection for her new home. Already she knew every object in Mr Bradfield’s collection by heart, and could have found her way blindfold into any corner of the grounds.
There was one exception, and it galled her. To the west of the house the grounds were very open, for the flower-garden was on that side, and the trees had been cut down in order to get more sun on the borders. On the south, towards the sea, a lawn sloped gently down from the house to the outer fenceOn the north side was the carriage drive, and more flower-beds. But the grounds on the east side she had been unable to explore, as they were cut off from the rest by a light ornamental iron fence, and two gates, one on the north side and one on the south, which were kept locked.
She had gone so far as to ask one of the under gardeners to let her go through; but he had respectfully referred her to the head gardener, whereupon she had given up her design as hopeless, divining, as she did, that he would refer her to Mr. Bradfield, and that Mr. Bradfield would make some excuse to prevent her going through. For the girl knew very well, in spite of the frank manner in which he spoke of the east wing and its occupant, that there was some sort of mystery, some secret, big or little, connected with Mr. Richard, and she believed that it was on account of the madman’s presence in the east wing that the grounds on that side of the house were closed. She thought she would trust to her chances of getting inside those gates without asking anybody’s permission. They must be unlocked sometimes, and as she was always about the grounds, she had only to wait for her opportunity.
Of course she was right. The opportunity came one morning, when one of the gardeners had gone through the north gate with a wheel-barrow, leaving the key in the gate behind him.
Chris, who was looking out of her bed-room window, ran downstairs and out of the house, and was through the gate in a moment.
A winding gravel path led through a thick growth of trees to the kitchen garden, where she saw Johnson, the second gardener, busy with the celery-bed.He saw her, but touched his hat, and took no further notice beyond a faint grin. Probably the affairs of the household were sufficiently discussed in the servants’ hall for him to guess that the young lady’s transgression would be overlooked at headquarters. Chris sauntered on, peeping into the tomato-houses, and trying to look through the steaming glass of the fern-houses, until she was well under the windows of the shut-up rooms. And she now perceived that there were bars in front of all of them.
The girl was a little impressed by this, and she kept well among the trees, with a feeling that some hideous maniac’s face might appear at one of the windows, and make grimaces at her. It was easy for her to remain hidden herself from any eyes in the east wing but very sharp ones; for under the trees was a growth of bushes and shrubs, through which she could peep herself at the barred windows. She had made her way cautiously, and under cover, from the north to the south, and turning, she could see the sea between the branches. But from the first floor the view of the sea was, in great part, spoiled by the thick growth of the upper branches of the big elms and fir trees which allowed a good view between their bare trunks from the ground floor.
Chris met nobody, and she saw nobody at the front windows. Rather disappointed, she was making her way back again, in order to get out through the gate by which she had entered, when, glancing up at one of the east windows on the first floor, she saw that, since she had last passed, a man had seated himself close to the panes.
At the first moment she of course thought this must be the maniac, and she quickly concealed herselfbehind one of the bushes by the side of the path, so that she could get a good view of him without his seeing her. But a very few seconds made her alter her first impression. Surely this was no madman, this handsome man with the pale, refined face, and large, melancholy eyes. The face was young, at least she thought so at the first look. It was not until she had examined it for some seconds that she saw the deep lines and furrows about the mouth and eyes, and the silver patches in the hair, which was long, and brushed back from the face.
Chris drew a deep breath. Something in the face made her think she had seen it before. The long and slightly aquiline nose, the straight mouth with its finely-cut lips, the brushed-back hair—she seemed to know them all, as part of a picture she had lately seen. Suddenly an exclamation broke from her lips. The miniature! yes, the face at the window was the face in the little picture. This must be Gilbert Wryde.
Chris was much puzzled. Was he the doctor who attended Mr. Richard, or an old friend who had come to see him? This seemed the more probable of the two suppositions; for if the portrait had been that of the madman’s doctor, Mr. Bradfield would scarcely have said that he did not know him.
But then the date on the portrait, 1847? The painting was that of a young man in the very prime of life. In spite of the lines in his face and the silver in his hair, it was impossible that the face behind the barred window could be that of a man at least seventy years of age.
Chris began to feel herself blushing, ashamed of the unseen watch she was keeping upon a strange man.The sun of a very bright December morning was upon his face, and upon a gold watch which he held in his hand and looked at intently. This fact, together with the intense seriousness of his face, caused Chris to revert to her idea that he must be a physician. She had not heard that Mr. Richard was ill, but that was nothing, for his name, as far as she knew, was very little mentioned in the household, and he might be ill without her ever hearing of it.
She thought it probable that he was not only ill, but that his malady had reached some grave crisis; for the face at the window was quite serious enough to warrant the supposition that he was counting the minutes in a case of life and death. This idea seized upon her so strongly that she found herself watching for a change in his face, thinking she should be able to tell whether the expression altered to one of hope or to one of despair.
Presently the expression did change. A look of eager expectancy appeared in it as the dark eyes looked up. The unknown man put his watch back in in his pocket, and disappeared quickly from the window.
Chris, who was surprised to find that she had been standing still long enough to grow cold and stiff, moved quickly away from her hiding-place with a flush of shame in her cheeks. A few steps further along the winding path under the trees, on which the decaying leaves lay thickly, brought her out into the kitchen garden. Johnson had finished with his celery and was going into one of the houses to look at his cuttings. He glanced up at her, and she thought she would ask him a question.
“Is Mr. Richard ill, Johnson, do you know?” she said.
“Not as I knows on, miss. At least, not worse nor ordinary,” he said, with a slight gesture of the head to denote where his weakness lay.
“Then why has he got a doctor with him?”
“He ain’t got no doctor with him, not as fur as I knows on, miss.”
“The gentleman with the long grey hair; isn’t he a doctor?”
“Why, no, Miss,” answered Johnson, with a grin; “the gentleman with the long hair is Mr. Richard himself.”
Chris was so much astonished that for a moment she stared at the man and said nothing. Then she repeated, slowly:
“Mr. Richard! Why, he looks sane!”
Johnson shook his head.
“He do sometimes, miss,” he answered, with an air of superior wisdom. “Other times he carries on awful, smashes the windows, and makes noises and cries to make your blood run cold. That’s how it is, as I’ve heard, with folks that’s not got their proper wits. You’d think they was as wise as you and me, and then something upsets ’em and off they go sudden-like, an’ raises old ’Arry before you can say Jack Robinson.”
Chris was cut to the heart. Whether she would have felt quite so much compassion for Mr. Richard if he had been stout, red-faced and stubbly-haired is, unfortunately, open to question. But the idea of this man with the handsome features and the interesting expression passing his life shut up in those lonely rooms, with no society but that of Stelfox the Stolid, shocked her, and made her miserable. She could not realise his condition; could not understand mentaldeficiency in the owner of a face which seemed to her as intellectual as it was good-looking. In a state of the strongest excitement she turned back again into the shrubbery to try to get one more look at the madman, and discover, if she could, in the placid, grave features some sign of the disorder behind them.
A romantic notion had seized her that perhaps the most had not been done that could be done for him, and that she might be the means of inducing Mr. Bradfield to make one last and more successful effort to restore him to reason.
And as this thought passed through her mind, the voice of Mr. Bradfield himself calling to her made her start and look round.
He was coming out of the orchid house, and he addressed her by name in a tone of surprise and some displeasure.
“Miss Christina! Is that you? What are you doing in this part of the world?”
“You know you said that I might examine every corner of the place if I liked,” answered Chris, blushing. “But I have never been able to get into this particular corner until to-day.”
“Why didn’t you ask me to bring you here? I would have shown you anything you wanted to see, and should have had great pleasure in doing so, as you know,” replied he, still with some stiffness. “As it is, I suppose you have not seen much to interest you? You have not been into any of the houses?”
“I haven’t been into any of the houses, but I have seen something to interest me,” answered Chris, with her heart beating fast.
She had resolved to be bold, and to carry on herscheme on behalf of Mr. Richard, while excitement gave her courage. Mr. Bradfield raised his eyebrows a little, and Chris looked down, lest she should be frightened by his frowns.
“I have seen poor Mr. Richard—at the window,” she answered, drawing her breath quickly, and feeling rather than seeing, that Mr. Bradfield was displeased. “And—and I want to know, Mr. Bradfield, if you will let my mother and me see him, and speak to him?”
“Speak to him!” exclaimed Mr. Bradfield shortly. “Speak to a madman! Well, you can, certainly if you like. But we shall have to take some precautions, as the very sight of a woman throws him into a frenzy. The sex is his pet aversion.”
Chris looked incredulous; she could not help it. It is always difficult to understand that one can have no attraction for a creature who attracts oneself, and Mr. Richard certainly attracted her.
“I can’t think what has put the idea into your head of wishing to speak to him,” went on Mr. Bradfield, in a tone of open annoyance. “Surely you don’t think he is ill-treated under my roof? Stelfox is a man in every way to be trusted, and you can ask him yourself about the poor fellow’s condition.”
“I didn’t mean that, I didn’t mean to imply that he was not kindly treated,” answered Chris, hastily. “But he looks so sane, so quiet; I was wondering whether something might not perhaps be done for him if you sent him to be seen by some celebrated mad doctor. I daresay you will think it very impertinent of me to make such a suggestion,” added the girl, laughing rather shyly, as if deprecating his anger at her boldness, “but you know mother always saysI’m an impudent monkey, and I can’t help my nature, can I?”
But Mr. Bradfield did not take her remarks as kindly as usual. He frowned, and seemed to be thinking out some idea which had entered his mind while she was speaking. There was a short pause before he said, not noticing her last words:
“You think he is quiet, do you? You think I am exaggerating when I tell you he hates the sight of a woman. Well, you shall see. Wait here a moment while I find out where he is.”
Mr. Bradfield left her by herself for a short time, while he followed the path among the trees, towards the sea-front. Chris felt chilled and miserable. He seemed so much annoyed that she feared that she had done more harm than good by her interference. All that she had gained was the knowledge that Mr. Richard’s case was considered hopeless; and this knowledge caused her infinite pain. She looked up again at the barred windows, and pictured to herself the blank, dismal life of the man who lived in those gloomy rooms, where the branches of the trees shut out the sun. What were the thoughts that occupied the mind of the unhappy man who lived there? Whom was he waiting for, watch in hand? Was it for someone to cheer him in his solitude, someone who never came?
Silly Chris had tears in her eyes at the thought. She brushed them away hastily as Mr. Bradfield came hurriedly back. He looked excited, and there was a confident look on his face, which showed his belief that he could convert her to his own views of the madman.
“Come,” said he. “Come this way, through the front gate.”
Rather surprised, and wondering where he was going to lead her to, Chris followed Mr. Bradfield, not along the paths among the trees, but by a more open one, which passed nearer to the walls of the house, between two flower-borders. They turned the corner of the house, and as they did so, Mr. Bradfield looked up at the first-floor windows on the south side.
Mr. Richard was standing at one of them, with his face close to the glass, looking out.
“Mind,” said Mr. Bradfield, as he put one hand as if for protection on her shoulder, “when he sees you he will fall into a paroxysm of fury. But don’t be frightened; I’ll take care you come to no harm.”
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when Mr. Richard glanced down and saw the young lady with Mr. Bradfield. Just as the latter had predicted, Mr. Richard’s face changed in a moment from its quiet melancholy to an expression like that of an enraged wild animal. Before she had time either to run forward or backward, she heard the crash of glass above her, and a heavy glass goblet was flung down on to the ground beside her, narrowly missing her head. Then she heard a wild, unearthly cry, followed by a torrent of discordant utterances impossible to understand, except as the mad gibberings of a hopeless lunatic.
With a little scream she escaped from Mr. Bradfield, who had thrown his arm round her, and ran back towards the gate by which she had entered the enclosure.