The folds of her wine-dark violet dressGlow over the sofa fall on fall.As she sits in the light of her loveliness,With a smile for each and for all.
Could we find out her heart through that velvet and lace,Can it beat without rumpling her sumptuous dress?She will show us her shoulder, her bosom, her face,But what her heart's like, we must guess.—O. M.
The evening of Lady Vincent's reception arrived. At an unfashionably early hour Judge Merlin's country house was filled.
All the county families of any importance were represented there.The rustic guests, drawn, no doubt, not more by their regard forJudge Merlin and his daughter than by their curiosity to behold atitled foreigner.
Mr. and Mrs. Middleton and Beatrice came very early, encumbered with several bandboxes; for their long ride made it necessary for them to defer their evening toilet until after their arrival.
They were received and conducted to their rooms by old Aunt Katie."Lady Vincent," she said, "has not yet left her dressing room."
When their toilets were made, Mr. and Mrs. Middleton came to Bee's door to take her down to the drawing room.
Very beautiful indeed looked Bee, in her floating, cloud-like dress of snow-white tulle, with white moss-roses resting on her rounded bosom and wreathing her golden ringlets; and all her beauty irradiated with the light of a happy love.
Her father smiled proudly and her mother fondly on her as she came out and joined them.
The found the drawing rooms already well filled with guests.
Lord and Lady Vincent stood near the door to receive all comers. To them the Middletons first went.
Very handsome and majestic looked Claudia in her rich robe of royal purple velvet, with her raven black hair crowned with a diadem of diamonds, and diamonds blazing on her neck and arms and at her waist. Strangers looked upon her loveliness with unqualified delight. Her "beauty made them glad." But friends who saw the glittering surface and the alloy beneath it, admired and sighed. Her dark eyes were beaming with light; her oval cheeks were burning with crimson fire. Mrs. Middleton thought this was fever; but Bee knew it was French rouge.
Claudia received her friends with bright smiles and gay words. She complimented them on their good looks and rallied them on their gravity. And then she let them lightly pass away to make room for new arrivals, who were approaching to pay their respects.
They passed through the crowd until they found Judge Merlin, to whose care Mr. Middleton consigned Bee, while he himself, with his wife on his arm, made a tour of all the rooms, including the supper room.
The party, they saw, was going to be a successful one, notwithstanding the fact that the three great metropolitan ministers of fashion had nothing whatever to do with it.
Sam and Jim, with perfect liberty to do their worst in the matters of garden flowers and wax lights, had decorated and illuminated the rooms with the rich profusion for which the negro servants are notorious. The guests might have been in fairy groves and bowers, instead of drawing rooms, for any glimpse of walls or ceilings they could get through green boughs and blooming flowers.
In the supper room old Aunt Katie with her attendant nymphs had laid a feast that might vie in "toothsomeness" if not in elegance with the best ever elaborated by the celebrated caterer.
And in the dancing room the local band of negro musicians drew from their big fiddle, little fiddle, banjo, and bones notes as ear- piercing and limb-lifting, if not as scientific and artistic, as anything ever executed by Dureezie's renowned troupe.
The Englishman, secretly cynical, sneered at all this; but openly courteous, made himself agreeable to all the prettiest of the country belles, who ever after had the proud boast of having quadrilled or waltzed with Lord Vincent.
The party did not break up until morning. The reason of this was obvious—the company could not venture to return home in their carriages over those dangerous country roads until daylight.
It was, in fact, sunrise before the last guests departed and the weary family were at liberty to go to bed and sleep. They had turned the night into day, and now it was absolutely necessary to turn the day into night.
They did not any of them awake until three or four o'clock in the afternoon, when they took coffee in their chambers. And they did not reassemble until the late dinner hour at six o'clock, by which time the servants had removed the litter of the party and restored the rooms to neatness, order, and comfort.
The Middletons had not departed with the other guests. They joined the family at dinner. And after dinner, at the pressing invitation of Judge Merlin, they agreed to remain at Tanglewood for the few days that would intervene before the departure of Lord and Lady Vincent for Europe. Only Bee, the next morning, drove over to the Beacon to give the servants there strict charges in regard to the girls and boys, and to bring little Lu back with her to Tanglewood.
The next week was passed in making the final preparations for the voyage.
And when all was ready on a bright Monday morning, the first of October, Lord and Lady Vincent, with their servants and baggage, departed from Tanglewood.
Judge Merlin, leaving his house to be shut up by the Middletons, accompanied them to see them off in the steamer.
It was quite an imposing procession that left Tanglewood that morning. There were two carriages and a van. In the first carriage rode Lord and Lady Vincent and Judge Merlin. In the second my lord's valet and my lady's three servants. And in the van was piled an inconceivable amount of luggage.
This procession made a sensation, I assure you, as it lumbered along the rough country roads. Every little isolated cabin along the way turned out its ragged rout of girls and boys who threw up their arms with a prolonged "Hooray!" as it passed—to the great disgust of the Englishman and the transient amusement of the judge. As for Claudia, she sat back with her eyes closed and cared for nothing.
The negroes came in for their share of notice.
"Hooray, Aunt Katie, is that you a-ridin' in a coach as bold as brass?" some wayside laborer would shout.
"As bold as brass yourself!" would be the irate retort of the old woman, nodding her head that was adorned with a red and yellow bonnet, from the window.
"Hillo, Jim! that's never you, going to forring parts as large as life?" would sing out another.
"Yes! Good-by! God bless you all as is left behind!" would be Jim's compassionate reply.
"Lord bless my soul and body, what a barbarous country!" would beLord Vincent's muttered comment. And the judge would smile andClaudia slumber, or seem to do so.
And this happened over and over again all along the turnpike road, until they got to Shelton, where they embarked on the steamer "Arrow" for Baltimore, where they arrived the next day at noon.
They made no stay in the Monumental City. Old Katie's dilated eyes had not time to relieve themselves by one wink over the wonders of the new world into which she was introduced, before, to her "surprise and 'stonishment," as she afterwards expressed it, she found herself "on board the cars, being whisked off somewhere else. And if you would believe her racket, she had to hold the h'ar on her head to keep it from being streamed off in the flight. And she was no sooner set down comfortable in the cars at Baltimore than she had to get up and get outen them at New York. And you better had believe it, chillun, that's all."
Old Aunt Katie must have slept all the way through that night's journey; for it is certain that the cars in which she traveled left Baltimore at eight o'clock in the evening and arrived at New York at six o'clock the next morning.
After their dusty, smoky, cindery ride of ten hours our party had barely time to find their hotel, cleanse and refresh themselves with warm baths and changes of raiment and get their breakfasts comfortably, before the hour of embarkation arrived. For they were required to be on board their steamer at ten o'clock, as she was announced to sail at twelve, meridian.
At ten, therefore, the carriages that had been ordered for the purpose of conveying them to the pier were announced.
Lower and lower sank the heart of the widowed father as the moment approached that was to separate him from his only child. There were times when he so dreaded that moment as to wish for death instead. There were times when he felt that the wrench which should finally tear his daughter from him must certainly prove his death-blow. Yet, for her sake, he bore himself with composure and dignity. He would not let her see the anguish that was oppressing his heart.
He entered the carriage with her and drove to the pier. He drew her arm within his own, keeping her hand pressed against his aching heart, and so he led her up the gang-plank on board the steamer, Lord Vincent and their retinue following. He would not trust himself to utter any serious words; but he led her to find her stateroom, that he might see for himself she would be comfortable on her voyage, and that he might carry away with him a picture of her and her surroundings in his memory. And then he brought her up on deck and found a pleasant seat for her, and sat down beside her, keeping her arm within his and her hand pressed as a balm to his covered bleeding heart.
There he sat, speaking but little, while active preparations were made for sailing. It looked to him like preparations for an execution.
Lord Vincent walked up and down the deck, occasionally stopping to exchange a word with Claudia, or the judge.
At length the signal-bell rang out, every peal striking like a death-toll on the heart of the old man.
And the order was shouted forth:
"All hands ashore!"
The moment of life and death had come. He started up; he strained his daughter to his breast. He gasped:
"God bless you, my dear! Write as soon as you land!"
He wrung the hand of Lord Vincent. "Be good to—" He choked, and hurried from the steamer.
He stood alone on the pier gazing at the receding ship, and at his daughter, who was leaning over the bulwarks, waving her handkerchief. Swiftly, swiftly, receded the ship from his strained sight. First his daughter's face faded from his aching vision; but still he could see the outline of her form. A minute or two and even that grew indistinct and was lost among the rigging. And while he was still straining his eyes to the cracking, in the effort to see her, the signal gun from the steamer was fired. The farewell gun! The ball seemed to strike his own heart. All his strength forsook him; his well-strung nerves suddenly relaxed; his limbs gave way beneath him, and he must have fallen but for the strong arms that suddenly clasped him and the warm bosom that firmly supported him.
Turning up his languid, fainting eyes, he saw—
"Ishmael!"
Yes, it was Ishmael, who with a son's devotion was standing there and sustaining Claudia's forsaken father in the hour of his utter weakness and utmost need.
At first the judge looked at him in surprise and incredulity, which soon, however, gave way before recognition and affection, as he rested on that true breast and met those beautiful eyes bent on him in deepest sympathy.
"Oh, Ishmael, Ishmael, is it you? is it indeed you? You here at need? Oh, my son, my son, would to the Lord that you were indeed my son! It is a grief and folly that you are not!" he exclaimed with emotion.
What could Ishmael reply to these words? Nothing. He could only tenderly support the old man and turn to a gray-haired servant that waited behind him and say:
"Professor, go call a carriage here quickly!"
And Jim Morris started on his errand, with all the crippled alacrity of age and zeal.
"Oh, Ishmael, she has gone! she has gone! My daughter has left me!" he groaned, grasping the hand of his young supporter.
"I know it, sir, I know it. But this hour of parting is the bitterest of all. The heart feels the wrench of separation keenly now."
"Oh, yes, yes!"
"But every coming hour will bring relief. You will cease to look back to the bitter parting, and you will look forward to the happy meeting. And that meeting may be as soon as you please, sir, you know. There is nothing on earth to prevent or even delay your visit to Lady Vincent as soon after she gets settled at home, as you like. This is October. You may spend Christmas with her, you know."
"That is true; that is very true, and Christmas is not so very far off. Ah! I ought not to have given way so, and I should not have done it, only I was quite alone when they sailed. There was no one with me to suggest these comforting thoughts, and I was too much prostrated by the wrench of parting to remember them of myself. Oh, Ishmael! what Providence was it that sent you to my side in this extremity?" inquired the judge, curiosity mingling with his interest in the question.
"I came here," said Ishmael frankly, "with no other purpose than to be with you in your hour of trial. I knew that you would require the presence of some friend."
"Ah, Ishmael! it was just like you to drop all your business and come uncalled, traveling from Washington to New York, with the sole object of sustaining an old friend in the hour of his weakness. So that does not surprise me. But how did you hit the time so well?"
"I knew from Bee's last letter, dated from Tanglewood, the day that Lord Vincent had positively determined to sail. I knew also the name of the only steamer that sailed for Europe on that day. And so, as Bee expressed great regret that her father could not accompany you to New York, and great anxiety because you would be left quite alone after the trial of parting with Claudia, I suddenly resolved to come on. I came on by the same train that brought your party, although not in the same car. I reached the city this morning, and finding that the steamer was to sail at twelve, noon, I walked down to the pier at half-past eleven so as to be ready to meet you when you should come ashore."
"And you took all this thought and trouble for me? Oh, Ishmael,Ishmael, what a sorrow and shame it is that you are not my son!"
"I am your son in reverence, and love, and service, sir; and if I am not in any other way it is because the Lord has willed otherwise," said Ishmael very gravely.
"Did you see Claudia off?" inquired the judge.
"I saw the steamer; I did not see Lady Vincent. I was in the rear of the crowd on the pier and looking out among them that I might not miss you," replied Ishmael. But he did not add that he had sedulously avoided looking at Claudia as she stood beside her husband on the deck waving her handkerchief in adieus to her father.
In a few minutes Jim Morris came up with a comfortable carriage, and the judge, somewhat recovered now, was assisted into it.
"You are coming too, Ishmael, are you not?" said the old man, looking anxiously out of the window.
"Of course I am, sir; for with your permission I will not leave you until we get back to Washington," replied the young man, preparing to spring into the carriage. But suddenly pausing with his hand on the door he inquired:
"Where shall I order the hackman to drive?"
The judge named his hotel, which happened to be the very one at which Ishmael was stopping; and so the young man gave the order and entered the carriage.
The professor climbed up to a seat beside the hackman, and the hack moved on.
As the carriage turned into Broadway and rolled along that magnificent street, the professor, from his elevated seat, gazed with ever-increasing delight and admiration on the wonders of the great city spread before him.
There were moments when honest Jim Morris was inclined to suspect that, some time within the past few weeks, he must have died, been buried, and risen again to some new stage of existence; so wonderful to him seemed the change in his life. He had not had his satisfaction with gazing when the carriage stopped at the hotel.
Ishmael paid off the hack and gave his arm to the judge, and assisted him into the house.
"Ishmael," he said, as soon as they had reached a sitting room, "have you no other business in New York than to look after me?"
"None whatever. I am entirely at your service."
"Then we—But stop. Are you quite ready to return to Washington at any time?"
"Quite ready to go at a moment's warning, if required."
"Then I think we had better take the early train to-morrow morning, for you ought not to be absent from your office, especially during court term, and even I shall be better at home. We shall need to-day and to-night for rest, but we will start to-morrow. What do you think?"
"I think that is altogether the best plan."
As it was now about one o'clock the judge ordered luncheon. And when they had partaken of it, and the judge had drunk several glasses of rich old port, he said:
"Ishmael, I did not get a wink of sleep last night, and this wine has made me drowsy. I think I will go to my chamber and lie down."
Ishmael gave the judge his arm and assisted him to his bed-room, and saw him lie down, and waited until he knew him to be in a deep, refreshing sleep; and then he closed the blinds, and darkened the room, and left him to repose.
In the hall he spoke to one of the waiters, and placing a quarter of an eagle in his hand, requested him to go up and remain near the judge's chamber door until he should awake.
Then Ishmael sought the professor out and said to him:
"Professor, this is your first visit to New York, as it is also mine. Let us make use of the little time we have to see as much as we can."
Jim Morris eagerly jumped at the proposition.
Ishmael sent for a carriage, and they started; the professor this time riding inside with Ishmael, as he always did when they were alone.
They spent the whole afternoon in sight-seeing, and returned at sunset.
The judge had not awakened, nor did he awake until roused by the ear-stunning gong that warned all the guests to prepare for dinner.
He opened his eyes and stared around in bewilderment for a few seconds, and then seeing Ishmael, remembered everything.
"Ah, my boy, now it is all come back to me afresh, and I have got to meet it all over again. I had been dreaming that I was at Tanglewood with my child, and she was neither married nor going to be. Now I have lost her anew," he said, with a deep sigh.
"I know it, sir; but with every sleep and every awakening this impression will be fainter and fainter. You will soon be cheerful and happy again, in the anticipation of going to see her."
"Plague take that gong! how it does belabor and thrash one's tympanum!" said the judge irritably, as he slowly arose to dress for dinner.
After dinner Ishmael persuaded him not to stay in and mope, but to go with him to hear a celebrated traveler and eloquent lecturer, who was to hold forth in one of the churches on the manners and customs of the Laplanders. The professor also had leave to go. And the judge and Ishmael were well entertained and interested, and the professor was instructed and delighted. Evidently the old odd-job man, judging from his past and present experience, thought
"That now the kingdom must be coming,And the years of jubilo."
They returned to a late supper, and then retired to bed.
Next morning they took the early train for Washington, where they arrived at seven o'clock.
The judge went home with Ishmael and remained his guest for two or three days, while he wrote to Reuben Gray to send up Sam and the carriage for him; and waited for it to come.
Ishmael at the same time took the responsibility of writing to Mr. Middleton, advising him to come up with the carriage in order to bear the judge company in his journey home.
The last day of the week the carriage arrived with Mr. Middleton inside and Sam on the box. And on Monday morning the judge, in better spirits than anyone could have expected him to be, took an affectionate leave of Ishmael, and with Mr. Middleton for company, set out for Tanglewood, where in due time they arrived safely.
We also must bid adieu to Ishmael for a short time and leave him to the successful prosecution of his business, and to the winning of new laurels. For it is necessary to the progress of this story that we follow the fortunes of Claudia, Viscountess Vincent.
If we had heard that she was deadWe hastily had cried,"She was so richly favoredGod will forgive her pride!"But now to see her living death—Power, glory, arts, all gone—Her empire lost and her poor breathStill vainly struggling on!—Milnes.
The "Ocean Empress" steamed her way eastward. The month was favorable; the weather bright; the wind fair and the sea calm. Every circumstance promised a pleasant voyage. None but a few unreasonable people grew seasick; and even they could not keep it up long.
There was a very select and agreeable set of passengers in the first cabin.
But Lord and Lady Vincent were the only titled persons present; and from both European and American voyagers received a ridiculous amount of homage.
Claudia enjoyed the worship, though she despised the worshipers. Her spirits had rebounded from their depression. She was Lady Vincent, and in the present enjoyment and future anticipation of all the honors of her rank. She gloried in the adulation her youth, beauty, wealth, and title commanded from her companions on the steamer; hut she gloried more in the anticipation of future successes and triumphs on a larger scale and more extensive field.
She rehearsed in imagination her arrival in London, her introduction to the family of the viscount; her presentation to the queen; and the sensation she would produce at her majesty's drawing room, where she was resolved, even if it should cost her her whole fortune, to eclipse every woman present, not only in the perfection of her beauty, but also in the magnificence of her dresses and the splendor of her jewels. And after that what a season she would pass in London! Whoever was queen of England, she would he queen of beauty and fashion.
And then she would visit with Lord Vincent all the different seats of his family; and every seat would be the scene of a new ovation! As the bride of the heir she would be idolized by the tenants and retainers of his noble family!
She would, with Lord Vincent, make a tour of the Continent; she would see everything worth seeing in nature and in art, modern and antique; she would be presented in succession at every foreign court, and everywhere by her beauty and splendor achieve new successes and triumphs! She would frequent the circles of American ministers, for the express purpose of meeting there her countrywomen, and overwhelming by her magnificence those who had once, dared to sneer at that high flavor of Indian blood which had given luster to her raven hair and fire to her dark eyes! Returning to England after this royal progress on the Continent she would pass her days in cherishing her beauty and keeping up her state.
And the course of her life should be like that of the sun, beautiful, glorious, regnant! each splendid phase more dazzling than any that had preceded it. Was not this worth the price she paid for it?
Such were Claudia's dreams and visions. Such the scenes that she daily in imagination rehearsed. Such the future life she delighted to contemplate. And nothing—neither the attentions of her husband, the conversation of her companions, nor the beauty and glory of sea and sky—could win her from the contemplation of the delightful subject.
Meanwhile in that lovely October weather the "Empress" steamed her way over the sapphire blue sea and neared the cliffs of England.
At length on a fine afternoon in October they entered the mouth of the Mersey River, and two hours later landed at Liverpool.
Soon all was bustle with the custom house officers.
Leaving their luggage in charge of his valet, to be got through the custom house, Lord Vincent hurried Claudia into a cab, followed her, and gave the direction:
"To the Crown and Miter."
"Why not go to the Adelphi? All Americans go there, and I think it the best hotel in the city," said Claudia.
"The Crown and Miter will serve our turn," was the curt reply of the viscount.
Claudia looked up in surprise at the brusqueness of his answer, and then ventured the opinion:
"It is a first-class hotel, of course?"
"Humph!" answered his lordship.
They left the respectable-looking street through which they were driving and turned into a narrow by-street and drove through a perfect labyrinth of narrow lanes and alleys, made hideous by dilapidated and dirty buildings and ragged and filthy people, until at last they reached a dark, dingy-looking inn, whose creaking sign bore in faded letters: "The Crown and Miter."
"It is not here that you are taking me, Lord Vincent?" exclaimed Claudia in surprise and displeasure, as her eyes fell upon this house and sign.
"It certainly is, Lady Vincent," replied his lordship, with cool civility, as he handed her out of the cab.
"Why this—this is worse than the tavern you took me to in New York.I never was in such a house before in all my life."
"It will have all the attractions of novelty, then."
"Lord Vincent, I do beg that you will not take me into this squalid place," she said shrinking back.
"You might find less attractive places than this in the length and breadth of the island," he replied, as he drew her hand within his arm and led her into the house.
They found themselves in a narrow passage, with stained walls, worn oil-cloth, and a smell of meat, onions, and smoke.
"Oh!" exclaimed Claudia, in irrepressible disgust.
"You will get used to these little inconveniences after a while, my dear," said his lordship.
A man with a greasy white apron and a soiled napkin approached them and bowed.
"A bedroom and parlor, and supper immediately," was Lord Vincent's order to this functionary.
"Yes, sir. We can be happy to accommodate you, sir, with a bedroom; the parlor, sir, is out of our power; we having none vacant at the present time; but to-morrow, sir—" began the polite waiter, when Lord Vincent cut him short with:
"Show us into the bedroom, then."
"Yes, sir." And bowing, the waiter went before them up the narrow stairs and led them into a dusky, fady, gloomy-looking chamber, whose carpet, curtains, and chair coverings seemed all of mingled hues of browns and grays, and from their fadiness and dinginess almost indescribable in color.
The waiter set the candle on the tall wooden mantelpiece and inquired:
"What would you please to order for supper?"
"What will you have, madam?" inquired Lord Vincent, referring toClaudia.
"Nothing on earth, in this horrid place! I am heart-sick," she added, in a low, sad tone.
"The lady will take nothing. You may send me a beefsteak and a bottle of Bass' pale ale," said his lordship, seemingly perfectly careless as to Claudia's want of appetite.
"Yes, sir; shall I order it served in the coffee room?"
"No, send it up here, and don't be long over it."
The waiter left the room. And Lord Vincent walked up and down the floor in the most perfect state of indifference to Claudia's distress.
She threw herself into a chair and burst into tears, exclaiming:
"You do not care for me at all! What a disgusting place to bring a woman—not to say a lady—into! If you possessed the least respect or affection for me you would never treat me so!"
"I fancy that I possess quite as much respect and affection for you,Lady Vincent, as you do, or ever did for me," he answered.
And Claudia knew that he spoke the truth, and she could not contradict him; but she said:
"Suppose there is little love lost between us, still we might treat each other decently. It is infamous to bring me here."
"You will not be required to stay here long."
"I hope not, indeed!"
At this moment the waiter entered to lay the cloth for the viscount's supper.
"What time does the first train for Aberdeen leave?" inquired the viscount.
"The first train, sir, leaves at four o'clock in the morning, sir; an uncomfortable hour, sir; and it is besides the parliamentary, sir."
"That will do. See if my people have come up from the custom house."
"Yes, sir; I beg your pardon, sir, what name?" inquired the perplexed waiter.
"No matter. Go look for a fellow who has in charge a large number of boxes and a party of male and female gorillas."
The man left the room to do his errand and to report below that the person in "Number 13" was a showman with a lot of man-monkeys from the interior of Africa.
But Claudia turned to her husband in astonishment.
"Did I understand you to inquire about the train to Aberdeen?"
"Yes," was the short reply.
"But—I thought we were going to London—to Hurstmonceux House—"
"Belgravia? No, my dear, we are going to Scotland."
"But—why this change of plan? My father and myself certainly understood that I was to be taken to London and introduced to your family and afterwards presented to her majesty."
"My dear, the London season is over ages ago. Nobody that is anybody will be found in town until February. The court is at Balmoral, and the world is in Scotland. We go to Castle Cragg."
"But why could you not have told me that before?"
"My dear, I like to be agreeable. And people who are always setting others right are not so."
"Is Lord Hurstmonceux at Castle Cragg?"
"The earl is at Balmoral, in attendance upon her majesty."
"Then why do we not go to Balmoral?"
"The queen holds no drawing rooms there."
Claudia suspected that he was deceiving her; but she felt that it would do no good to accuse him of deception.
The waiter returned to the room, bringing Lord Vincent's substantial supper, arranged on a tray.
"I have inquired below, sir; and there is no one arrived having in charge your gorillas. But there is a person with a panorama, sir; and there is a person with three negro persons, sir," said the waiter.
"He will do. Send up the 'person with three negro persons,'" said the viscount.
And once more the waiter left the room.
In a few moments Lord Vincent's valet entered.
"Frisbie, we leave for Scotland by the four o'clock train, to-morrow morning. See to it."
"Yes, my lord. I beg your lordship's pardon, but is your lordship aware that it is the parliamentary?"
"Certainly; but it is also the first. See to it that your gorillas are ready. And—Frisbie."
"Yes, my lord."
"Go and engage a first-class carriage for our own exclusive use."
"Yes, my lord," said the man, with his hand still on the door, as if waiting further orders.
"Lord Vincent, I would be obliged if you would tell him to send one of my women to me," said Claudia coldly.
"Women? Oh! Here, Frisbie! send the female gorillas up."
"I said one of my women, the elder one, he may send."
"Frisbie, send the old female gorilla up, then."
The man went out of the room. And Claudia turned upon her husband:
"Lord Vincent, I do not know in what light you consider it; but I think your conduct shows bad wit and worse manners."
"Lady Vincent, I am sorry you should disapprove of it," said his lordship, falling to upon his beefsteak and ale, the fumes of which soon filled the room.
But that was nothing to what was coming. When he had finished his supper he coolly took a pipe from his pocket, filled it with "negro- head," and prepared to light it. Then stopping in the midst of his operations, he looked at Claudia and inquired:
"Do you dislike tobacco smoke?"
"I do not know, my lord. No gentleman ever smoked in my presence," replied Claudia haughtily.
"Oh, then, of course, you don't know, and never will until you try.There is nothing like experiment."
And Lord Vincent put the pipe between his lips and puffed away vigorously. The room was soon filled with smoke. That, combined with the smell of the beefsteak and the ale, really sickened Claudia. She went to the window, raised it and looked out.
"You will take cold," said his lordship.
"I would rather take cold than breathe this air," was her reply.
"Just as you please; but I hadn't," he said. And he went and shut down the window.
Amazement held Claudia still for a moment; she could scarcely believe in such utter disregard of her feelings. At last, in a voice vibrating with ill-suppressed indignation, she said:
"My lord, the air of this room makes me ill. If you must smoke, can you not do so somewhere else?"
"Where?" questioned his lordship, taking the pipe from his mouth for an instant.
"Is there not a smoking room, reading room, or something of the sort, for gentlemen's accommodation?"
"In this place? Ha, ha, ha! Well, there is the taproom!"
"Then why not go there?" inquired Claudia, who had no very clear idea of what the taproom really was.
Lord Vincent's face flushed at what he seemed to think an intentional affront.
"I can go into the street," he said.
And he arose and put on his greatcoat and his cap, and turned up the collar of his coat and turned down the fall of his cap, so that but little of his face would be seen, and so walked out. Then Claudia raised the window to ventilate the room, and rang the bell to summon the waiter.
"Take this service away and send the chambermaid to me," she said to him when he came.
And a few minutes after he had cleared the table and left the room the chambermaid, accompanied by old Katie, entered.
"Is there a dressing room connected with this chamber?" Lady Vincent inquired.
"Law, no, mum! there isn't sich a place in the house," said the chambermaid.
"This is intolerable! You may go; my own servants will wait on me."
The girl went out.
"Unpack my traveling bag and lay out my things, Katie," said LadyVincent, when she was left alone with her nurse.
But the old woman raised her hands, and rolled up her eyes, exclaiming:
"Well, Miss Claudia, child!—I mean my ladyship, ma'am!—if this is Ingland, I never want to see it again the longest day as ever I live!"
"Liverpool is not England, Katie."
"Live-a-pool, is it? More like Die-a-pool!" grumbled old Katie, as she assisted her lady to change her traveling dress for a loose wrapper.
"Now, what have you had to eat, my ladyship?"
"Nothing, Katie. I felt as if I could not eat anything cooked in this ill-looking house."
"Nothing to eat! I'll go right straight downstairs and make you some tea and toast myself," said Katie.
And she made good her words by bringing a delicate little repast, of which Claudia gratefully partook.
And then Katie, with an old nurse's tenderness, saw her mistress comfortably to bed, and cleared and darkened the room and left her to repose.
But Claudia did not sleep. Her thoughts were too busy with the subject of Lord Vincent's strange conduct from the time that he had at Niagara received those three suspicious letters up to this time, when with his face hid he was walking up and down the streets of Liverpool.
That he sought concealment she felt assured by many circumstances: his coming to this obscure tavern; his choosing to take his meals and smoke his pipe in his bedroom; and his walking out with his face muffled—all of which was in direct antagonism to Lord Vincent's fastidious habits; and, finally, his taking a whole carriage in the railway train, for no other purpose than to have himself and his party entirely isolated from their fellow-passengers.
Lord Vincent came in early, and, thanks to the narcotic qualities of the ale, he soon fell asleep.
Claudia had scarcely dropped into a doze before, at the dismal hour of three o'clock in the morning, they were roused up to get ready for the train. They made a hurried toilet and ate a hasty breakfast, and then set out for the station.
It was a raw, damp, foggy morning. The atmosphere seemed as dense and as white as milk. No one could see a foot in advance. And Claudia wondered how the cabmen managed to get along at all.
They reached the station just as the train was about to start, and had barely time to hurry into the carriage that had been engaged for them before the whistle shrieked and they were off. Fortunately Frisbie had sent the luggage on in advance, and got it ticketed.
The carriage had four back and four front seats. Lord and Lady Vincent occupied two of the back seats, and their four servants the front ones. As they went on the fog really seemed to thicken. They traveled slowly and stopped often. And Claudia, in surprise, remarked upon these facts.
"One might as well be in a stage—for speed," she complained.
"It is the parliamentary train," he replied.
"I have heard you say that before; but I do not know what you mean by 'parliamentary' as applied to railway trains."
"It is the cheap train, the slow train, the people's train; in fact, one that, in addition to first- and second-class carriages, drags behind it an interminable length of rough cars, in which the lower orders travel," said his lordship.
"But why is it called the 'parliamentary'?"
"Because it was instituted by act of parliament for the accommodation of the people, or perhaps because it is so heavy and slow."
On they went, hour after hour, stopping every three or four miles, while the fog seemed still to condense and whiten.
At noon the train reached York, and stopped twenty minutes for refreshment. Lord Vincent did not leave the carriage, but sent his valet out to the station restaurant to procure what was needful for his party. And while the passengers were all hurrying to and fro, and looking in at the carriage, he drew the curtains of his windows, and sat back far in his seat.
Claudia would gladly have left the train and spent the interval in contemplating, even if it were only the outside of the ancient cathedral of which she had read and heard so much.
Lord Vincent assured her there was no time to lose in sight-seeing then, but promised that she should visit York at some future period.
And the train started again. They began to leave the fog behind them as they approached the seacoast. They soon came in sight of the North Sea, beside which the railway ran for some hundred miles. Here all was bright and clear. And Claudia for a time forgot all the suspicions and anxieties that disturbed her mind, and with all a stranger's interest gazed on the grandeur of the scenery and dreamed over the associations it awakened.
Here "lofty Seaton-Delaval" was pointed out to her. And Tinemouth, famed in song for its "haughty prioress," and "Holy Isle," memorable for the inhumation of Constance de Beverly.
At sunset they crossed Berwick bridge and entered Scotland.
Claudia was entirely lost in gazing on the present landscape, and dreaming of its past history. Here the association between scenery and poetry was perfect. Nature is ever young—and this was the very scene and the very hour described in Scott's immortal poem, and as Claudia gazed she murmured the lines:
"Day set on Norham's castled steep,And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep,And Cheviot's mountains lone;The battled towers, the donjon keep,The flanking walls that round it sweep,In yellow luster shone,"
Yes! it was the very scene, viewed at the very hour, just as the poet described it to have been two hundred years before, when
"Marmion, Lord of Fontenaye,Of Lutterward and Scrivelbaye,Of Tamworth tower and town,"
crossed with his knightly train into Scotland. There was the setting sun burnishing the brown tops of the Cheviot hills; gilding the distant ruined towers of Norham Castle, and lighting up the waters of the Tweed.
But there is little time for either observation or dreaming in a railway train.
They stopped but a few minutes at Berwick, and then shot off northward, still keeping near the coast.
Claudia looked out upon the gray North Sea, and enjoyed the magnificence of the coast scenery as long as the daylight lasted.
When it was growing dark Lord Vincent said:
"You had just as well close that window, Claudia. It will give us all cold; and besides, you can see but little now."
"I can see Night drawing her curtain of darkness around the bed of the troubled waters. It is worth watching," murmured Claudia dreamily.
"Bosh!" was the elegant response of the viscount; "you will see enough of the North Sea before you have done with it, I fancy." And with an emphatic clap he let down the window.
Claudia shrugged her shoulders and turned away, too proud to dispute a point that she was powerless to decide.
They sped on towards Edinboro', through the darkness of one of the darkest nights that ever fell. Even had the window been open Claudia could not have caught a glimpse of the scenery. She had no idea that they were near the capital of Scotland until the train ran into the station. Then all was bustle among those who intended to get out there.
But through all the bustle Lord Vincent and his party kept their seats,
"I am very weary of this train. I have not left my seat for many hours. Can we not stop over night here? I should like to see Edinboro' by daylight," Claudia inquired.
"What did you say?" asked Lord Vincent, with nonchalance.
Claudia repeated her question, adding:
"I should like to remain a day or two in Edinboro'. I wish to see the Castle, and Holyrood Palace and Abbey, and Roslyn and Craigmiller, and——"
"Everything else, of course. Bother! We have no time for that. I have taken our tickets for Aberdeen, and mean to sleep at Castle Cragg to-night," replied the viscount.
Claudia turned away her head to conceal the indignant tears that arose to her eyes. She was beginning to discover that her comfort, convenience, and inclination were just about the last circumstances that her husband was disposed to take into consideration. What a dire reverse for her, whose will from her earliest recollection had been the law to all around her!
The train started again and sped on its way through the darkness of the night towards Aberdeen, where they arrived about eight o'clock.
"Here at last the railway journey ends, thank Heaven," sighed Claudia, as the train slackened its speed and crawled into the station. And the usual bustle attending its arrival ensued.
Fortunately for Claudia, the viscount found himself too much fatigued after about sixteen hours' ride to go farther that night. So he directed Mr. Frisbie to engage two cabs to take himself and his party to a hotel.
And when they were brought up he handed Claudia, who was scarcely able to stand, into the first one, and ordered Frisbie to put the "gorillas" into the other. And they drove to a fourth- or fifth-rate inn, a degree or two dirtier, dingier, and darker than the one they had left at Liverpool.
But Claudia was too utterly worn out in body, mind, and spirit to find fault with any shelter that promised to afford her the common necessaries of life, of which she had been deprived for so many hours.
She drank the tea that was brought her, without questioning its quality. And as soon as she laid her head on her pillow she sank into the dreamless sleep of utter exhaustion.
She awoke late the next morning to take her first look at the old town through a driving rain that lashed the narrow windows of her little bedroom. Lord Vincent had already risen and gone out.
She rang for her servants. Old Katie answered the bell, entering with uplifted hands and eyes, exclaiming:
"Well, my ladyship! if this ain't the outlandishest country as ever was! Coming over from t'other side we had the ocean unnerneaf of us, and now 'pears to me like we has got it overhead of us, by the fog and mist and rain perpetual! And if this is being of lords and ladyships, I'd a heap leifer be misters and mist'esses, myself."
"I quite agree with you, Katie," sighed Lady Vincent, as, with the old woman's assistance, she dressed herself.
"It seems to me like as if we was regerlerly sold, my ladyship," said old Katie mysteriously.
"Hush! Where are we to have breakfast—not in this disordered room,I hope?"
"No, my ladyship. They let us have a little squeezed-up parlor that smells for all the world as if a lot of men had been smoking and drinking in it all night long. My lordship's down there, waiting for his breakfast now. Pretty place to fetch a 'spectable cullored pusson to, let alone a lady! Well, one comfort, we won't stay here long, cause I heard my lordship order Mr. Frisbie to go and take two inside places and four outside places in the stage-coach as leaves this mornin' for Ban. 'Ban,' 'Ban'; 'pears like it's been all ban and no blessin' ever since we done lef' Tanglewood."
Lady Vincent did not think it worth while to correct Katie. She knew by experience that all attempts to set her right would be lost labor.
She went downstairs and joined Lord Vincent in the little parlor, where a breakfast was laid of which it might be said that if the coffee was bad and the bannocks worse, the kippered herrings were delicious.
After breakfast they took their places in or on the Banff mail coach; Lord and Lady Vincent being the sole passengers inside; and all their servants occupying the outside. And so they set out through the drizzling rain and by the old turnpike road to Banff.
This road ran along the edge of the cliffs overhanging the sea—the sea, ever sublime and beautiful, even when dimly seen through the dull veil of a Scotch mist.
Claudia was not permitted to open the window; but she kept the glass polished that she might look out upon the wild scenery.
Late in the afternoon they reached the town of Banff, where they stopped only long enough to order a plain dinner and engage flies to take them on to their final destination, Castle Cragg, which in truth Claudia was growing very anxious to behold.
The wildest scene, but this, can showSome touch of nature's genial glow;But here, above, around, below,On mountain or in glen,Nor tree, nor shrub, nor plant, nor flower.Nor aught of vegetative powerThe weary eye may ken.For all is rocks at random thrown,Black waves, bare crags, and banks of stone.—Scott.
Immediately after dinner they set out again on this last stage of their journey, Claudia and Vincent riding in the first fly and Frisbie and the "gorillas" in the second one. The road still lay along the cliffs above the sea. And Claudia still sat and gazed through the window of the fly as she had gazed through the window of the coach, at the wild, grand, awful scenery of the coast. Hour after hour they rode on until the afternoon darkened into evening.
The last object of interest that caught Claudia's attention, before night closed the scene, was far in advance of them up the coast. It was a great promontory stretching far out into the sea and lifting its lofty head high into the heavens. Upon its extreme point stood an ancient castle, which at that height seemed but a crow's nest in size.
Claudia called Lord Vincent's attention to it.
"What castle is that, my lord, perched upon that high promontory? I should think it an interesting place, an historical place, built perhaps in ancient times as a stronghold against Danish invasion," she said.
"That? Oh, ah, yes! That is a trifle historical, in the record of a score of sieges, storms, assaults, and so on; and a bit traditional, in legends of some hundred capital crimes and mortal sins; and in fact altogether, as you say, rather interesting, especially to you, Claudia. It is Castle Cragg, and it will have the honor to be your future residence."
"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Claudia, gazing now in consternation upon that drear, desolate, awful rock. "Dread point of Dis" it seemed indeed to her.
"For a season only, my dear, of course," said the viscount, with the queerest of smiles, of which Claudia could make nothing satisfactory.
She continued to look out, but the longer she gazed upon that awful cliff and the nearer she approached it, the more appalled she became. She now saw, in turning a winding of the coast, that the point of the cliff stretched much farther out to sea than had at first appeared, and that only a low neck of land connected it with the main; and she knew that when the tide was high this promontory must be entirely cut off from the coast and become, to all intents and purposes, an island. Approaching nearer still, she saw that the cliff was but a huge, bare, barren rock, of which the castle, built and walled in of the same rock, seemed but an outgrowth and a portion.
If this rock-bound, sea-walled dwelling-place, which had evidently been built rather for a fortification than for a family residence, struck terror to the heart of Claudia, what effect must it have had upon the superstitious mind of poor old Katie, riding in the fly behind, when Mr. Frisbie was so good as to point it out to her with the agreeable information that it was to be her future home.
"What, dat!" exclaimed the old woman in consternation. "You don't mean dat! Well, lord! I'se offen hearn tell of de 'Debbil's Icy Peak,' but I nebber expected to cotch my eyes on it, much less lib on it, I tell you all good!"
"That's it, hows'ever, Mrs. Gorilla," said Mr. Frisbie.
"I keep a-telling you as my family name aint Gorilla, it's Mortimer; dough Gorilla is a perty name, too; it ralely is, on'y you see, chile, it aint mine," said unconscious Katie.
But the darkening night shut out from their view the awful cliff to which, however, they were every moment approaching nearer.
Fortunately as the carriages reached the base of this cliff the tide was low, and they were enabled to pass the neck of land that united the island to the coast and made it a promontory. After passing over this narrow strip they ascended the cliff by a road so steep that it had been paved with flagstones placed edgeways to afford a hold for the horses' hoofs and aid them in climbing. It was too dark to see all this then; but Claudia knew from the inclined position of the carriage how steep was the ascent, and she held her very breath for fear. As for old Katie, in the carriage behind, she began praying.
A solitary light shone amid the darkness above them. It came from a lamp at the top of the castle gate. They reached the summit of the cliff in safety, and Lady Vincent breathed freely again and old Katie's prayers changed to thanksgivings.
They crossed the drawbridge over the ancient moat and entered the castle gate. The light above it revealed the ghastly, iron-toothed portcullis, that looked ready to fall and impale any audacious passenger under its impending fangs. And they entered the old paved courtyard and crossed over to the main entrance of the castle hall.
Here, at length, some of the attendant honors of Lady Vincent's new rank seemed ready to greet her.
The establishment had been expecting its lord and had heard the sound of carriages. The great doors were thrown open; lights flashed out; liveried servants appeared in attendance.
"You got my telegram, I perceive, Cuthbert," Lord Vincent said to a large, red-haired Scot, in plain citizen's clothes, who seemed to be the porter.
"Yes, me laird, though, as ye ken, the chiels at yon office at Banff hae to send it by a special messenger—sae it took a long time to win here."
"All right, Cuthbert, since you received it in time to be ready for us. Light us into the green parlor, and send the housekeeper here to attend Lady Vincent."
"Yes, me laird," answered the man, bowing low before he led the way into a room so elegantly furnished as to afford a pleasant surprise to Claudia, who certainly did not expect to find anything so bright and new in this dark, old castle.
Here she was presently joined by a tall, spare, respectable-looking old woman in a black linsey dress, white apron and neck shawl, and high-crowned Scotch cap.
"How do you do, dame? You will show Lady Vincent to her apartments and wait her orders."
"Eh, sirs! anither ane!" ejaculated the old woman under her breath; then turning to Claudia, with a courtesy she said: "I am ready to attend your leddyship."
Claudia arose and followed her through the vast hall and up the lofty staircase to another great square stone hall, whose four walls were regularly indented by lines of doors leading into the bed chambers and dressing rooms.
And as Claudia looked upon this array, her first thought was that a stranger might easily get confused among them and open the wrong door. And that it would be well to have them numbered as at hotels to prevent mistakes.
The old housekeeper opened one of the doors and admitted her mistress into a beautifully furnished and decorated suite of apartments which consisted of boudoir, bedroom, and dressing room opening into each other, so that, as Claudia entered the first, she had the vista of the three before her eyes. The floors were covered with Turkey carpets so soft and deep in texture that they yielded like turf under the tread. And the heavy furniture was all of black walnut; and the draperies were all of golden-brown satin damask and richly embroidered lace.
The effect of the whole was warm, rich, and comfortable.
Claudia looked around herself with approbation; her spirits rose; she felt reconciled to the rugged old fortress that contained such splendors within its walls; for who would care how rough the casket, so that the jewels it held were of the finest water? Her plans "soared up again like fire."
She passed through the whole suite of rooms to the dressing room, which was the last in succession, and seated herself in an easy- chair beside a bright coal fire.
"The dinner will be served in an hour, me leddy. Will I bring your leddyship a cup of tea before you begin to dress?" inquired the housekeeper.
"If you please, you may send it to me by one of my own women. You are too aged to walk up and down stairs," replied Claudia kindly.
"Hech, sirs! I'm e'en reddy to haud me ain wi' any lassie i' the house," said she, nodding her tall, flapping white sap.
"Will you tell me your name, that I may know in future what to call you?" Claudia asked.
"It's e'en just Mistress Murdock, at your leddyship's bidding. And now I'll gae bring the tea."
"Send my servant Katie to me at the same time," said Lady Vincent, who, when she was left alone, turned again to view the magnificence that surrounded her.
"If ever I spend another autumn on this bleak coast, I shall take care to fill the castle halls and chambers with gay company," she said to herself.
The housekeeper entered with an elegant little tea-service of gold plate, and set it on a stand of mosaic work, by Claudia's side.
While she was drinking her tea Katie entered, smiling with both her eyes and all her teeth.
"Well, my ladyship, ma'am, this looks like life at last; don't it, though?"
"I think so, Katie," said her mistress, sipping her aromatic "oolong."
"I like Scraggy better nor I thought I would."
"You like what?"
"This big jail of a house—Scraggy something or other they call it."
"Castle Cragg."
"Yes, that's it; plague take the outlandish names, I say!"
"Now, Katie, unpack my maize-colored moire antique. I must dress for dinner."
Of course Claudia expected to meet no one at dinner except the disagreeable companion of her journey; but Claudia would have made an elaborate evening toilet had there been no one but herself to admire it.
So she arrayed herself with very great splendor and went downstairs.
In the lower hall she found the porter and several footmen.
"Show me into the drawing room," she said to the former.
Old Cuthbert bowed and walked before her, and threw open a pair of folding doors leading into the grand saloon of the castle. And Claudia entered.