That the Grey Monk was haunting the Friar's Keep that night, and for a longer period than could be quite agreeable to any chance passer-by, appeared to be indisputable.
Some of the Grey Sisters were up that evening at the coastguard station. The wife of one of the men was very ill, her infant being only three days old: and Sister Rachel had been with her for the day. At eight o'clock Sister Rachel was relieved by Sister Mona, who would remain for the night. Sister Ann walked up from the Nunnery with Sister Mona for company, and would walk back again with Sister Rachel.
It was about half past eight that they left the station to return home, the Sisters Ann and Rachel. The night was starlight, the air somewhat frosty. Talking of the poor woman, just quitted, Sister Rachel saying the fever was getting higher, they approached the Friar's Keep. They were on the opposite side of the road, and had nearly reached Chapel Lane when something strange--some kind of glimmer or faint flash--struck on Sister Rachel's vision, and caused her to turn her eyes on the upper casements of the Keep. With a spring and a cry, she seized hold of Sister Ann and clung to her.
"Have you trod upon a stone?" asked practical Sister Ann. But the very fact of turning to her companion, who was outside, brought the windows of the Keep before her, and she saw the Grey Monk slowly gliding along, with his cowl covering his head, and his lamp in his hand. A shadowy kind of form, suggestive of terrible ideas that don't pertain to earth.
The blood of the two unfortunate Sisters seemed to turn; they nearly sank away in evaporation. They clung to each other, arm in arm, hand to hand, pushing, staggering, pressing onwards, and in a minute, as it seemed, gained the Grey Nunnery. The door was opened by Sister Caroline, and they burst into the reception parlour.
The Superior sat there, Mary Ursula; and most of the sisters with her who were not out on charitable missions. To have stopped the tongues of the two terrified grey women would have been about as feasible as to stem a rushing torrent in its overwhelming coarse. They had seen the apparition of the Grey Monk gliding past the window with their own eyes; had seen his lamp; had nearly fainted at him altogether.
"Tut, tut, tut!" reproved Sister Mildred, who was better this evening and down stairs. "I think you must have been deceived by your fears.Inever saw it in my life."
But they only told their tale the more persistently, and Sister Mildred wavered. In vain Mary Ursula represented to them that there were no such things as ghosts: that people in believing in them, were misled by their fears and fancies. To this the two scared women only reiterated that they saw. They were walking quietly along, talking of the poor sick wife of the coastguardsman; nothing could have been further from their thoughts than any fears or fancies, when the figure suddenly appeared, plainly and unmistakably, before their astonished eyes.
"Sister Rachel saw it first," urged Sister Ann, anxious to defend herself against the imputation of having taken alarm unnecessarily, as though she were a foolish, timid child. "When she called out and caught hold of my arm, I thought she had trod upon a stone, or twisted her foot, or something; and, in turning to her there I saw the pale light in the window, and the figure of the Grey Monk. We stood rooted to the spot, holding on to one another, just too frightened to move, our poor eyes staring at the Keep. He glided past that window, and then past the other, his lighted lamp stretched out in his hand; just as Sister Lettice once saw him glide a year or so ago--and she knows it."
Sister Lattice, a simple woman, great in pudding-making, who had stood listening with round, frightened eyes, murmured her confirmation. One night, when she was belated, having been to a farm-house where sickness reigned, she had seen it exactly as the two sisters were describing it now; and had come home and fainted.
"I was beginning to forget my fright," said Sister Lettice, looking pleadingly at the two Superiors. "But since the late talk there has been about that poor Mr. Anthony Castlemaine, I've not dared to go out of doors at night alone. For the ghost has been seen more frequently since he disappeared: in fact, as the ladies know, it's said by some that it is the young man's spirit that comes now, not the Grey Friar's."
"It was the Grey Friar we saw to-night, let people say what they will," rejoined Sister Ann.
The talking continued. This was a great event in the monotonous existence of the Grey ladies: and the two unfortunate Sisters were shaking still. Mary Ursula withdrew quietly from the room, and put on the grey cloak and bonnet of the order, and came down again, and let herself out at the front door.
There was something in all this gossip that disturbed and distressed Mary Ursula. Anthony's fate and the uncertainty connected with it, was more often in her mind than she would have cared to tell. Like Charlotte Guise, she--what with dwelling on it and listening to the superstitions surmises in Greylands--had grown to think that the Friar's Keep did contain some mystery not yet unsolved. As to "ghosts," Mary Castlemaine's sound good sense utterly repudiated all belief in such. What, then, she naturally asked herself, was this figure, that took the appearance of the traditional Grey Monk, and showed itself at the windows of the Keep, lamp in hand? Had it anything to do with the disappearance of Anthony?
Obeying an irresistible impulse, she was going forth to-night to look at this said apparition herself--if, indeed, it would appear again and so allow itself to be looked at. It was perhaps a foolish thing to do; but she wanted to see with her own unprejudiced eyes what and whom it was like. With her whole heart she wished the occurrences of that past February night and the mysteries of the Friar's Keep--did it in truth contain any--were thrown open to the light of day: it might tend to clear what was dark--to clear her uncle from the silent suspicions attaching to him. It was of course his place to institute this search, but he did not do it. Encasing himself in his pride, his haughty indifference, Mary supposed he was content to let the matter alone until it righted itself. But she loved her uncle and was painfully jealous for his good name.
Turning swiftly out of the gate of the Nunnery, she went up the hill, passed the Chapel Ruins, crossed the road, and stood still to gaze at the Friars' Keep. The church clock was striking nine. Taking up her position under the hedge, in almost the selfsame spot where John Bent and Anthony Castlemaine had taken theirs that unlucky night, she fixed her eyes on the windows, and waited. The old building, partly in ruins, looked grey and grim enough. Sometimes the moon lighted it up; but there was no moon to night. The stars were bright, the atmosphere was clear.
The minutes, as they went by, seemed like hours. Mary Ursula had not much more patience than other people, and it was exhausting itself rapidly. Not a shadow of a sign was there of the Grey Monk or of any other appearance. To judge by its silence and its lonely look, one might have said the Keep had not been entered since the Grey Monk was alive.
"It is hardly to be supposed it would show itself twice in one night," breathed Mary, in a spirit that was somewhat of a mocking one. But in that she was mistaken: and she went away too soon.
At the end of a quarter of an hour--which had seemed to her like two quarters--she gave it up. Crossing the road to the chapel gate, she went in, traversed the ruins to the opposite corner to the Friar's Keep, and stood looking out to sea. Mary had another vexation on her mind that night: earlier in the day a report had reached her in a letter that her recreant lover, William Blake-Gordon, was engaged again: So soon!--so soon! Whether it was true, she knew not: it could not, either way, make much difference to the pain that filled her heart: but the report wrung it cruelly. The other name, mentioned in connection with his, was Agatha Mountsorrel's; her own close friend of former days. She knew that she ought not to feel this bitter pain, this wild jealousy; that, once he was lost to her, she should have put him out of her mind for good. Ah, it is all very well for the wise to lay down laws, to say this is wrong and the other is right and you must act accordingly! human nature is but frail, and the heart must be true to itself.
Some slight movement caught her attention below. It was low water, and the strip of beach underneath was free. Mary leaned over to look. But she could not see: the shelving-out rocks hid the path as she stood. In the deep silence of the night, she thought she could distinguish whispering voices, and she waited until their owners should have passed a little farther on, where a bend inward of the rocks allowed a view to be obtained.
It brought the greatest vexation of all! A tall fine form came into sight too tall, too fine, to be any but Harry Castlemaine's. His arm was around the waist of some young girl; his head was turned to her, and they were conversing eagerly. She wore a dark cloak, its hood drawn up over her head: Mary could not see her face, for their backs were towards her, but she fancied it was Jane Hallet. They passed away under the Nunnery, as if returning to the village, and were lost to sight and hearing. Only at quite low water was that narrow strip passable.
The heaving sea stretched itself out before her eyes; the dead of the past ages were mouldering away beneath her feet; the canopy of sky, studded with stars in its vast expanse, lay above her head. But for all these signs, and the thoughts they involved, Mary Ursula Castlemaine might in that moment have lost heart and courage. The by-ways of life seemed very crooked just then; its troubles pregnant with perplexity and pain. But God was over all. The turbulent waves were held in check by His Hand; the long-ago dead had been called by Him; the sky and the stars were but emblems of His power. Yes, He was over all. From His throne in Heaven He looked down on the world; on its cares, its trials, its weaknesses, its temptations and sins; overruling all according to His will. He could set things straight; He was full of compassion, long-suffering, and mercy. The dark troubles here would be merged in a bright hereafter: in a place where there should be no cankering heart-break, where sorrow and suffering should flee away. A few more years, and----
"Dear me, ma'am! I beg your pardon."
Mary Ursula, buried in her far-off thoughts in the solitary place, was startled at the address, and turned round with a slight cry. Close at her elbow stood John Bent; a small basket in his band, covered with a white cloth.
"I'm sure I frightened you, ma'am!"
"Just for the moment you did," she said, with her sweet smile, interrupting his farther apologies. "I was standing to take a look at the sea. How grand it is from this spot!"
John Bent agreed that it was grand, and proceeded to explain his presence. His wife had dispatched him with some broth and other trifles that might be acceptable to the sick woman up at the coastguard station. In passing the chapel ruins on his way thither, he had caught sight of some one standing at the edge of the cliff, and turned in at once to see who it was. "No wonder you did not hear me, ma'am, for I crept up on tiptoe," he acknowledged. "Since the disappearance of Mr. Anthony Castlemaine, this place is just as though it haunted me, for it is never out of my mind. To see somebody standing here in the shade of the corner wall gave me a turn. I could not imagine who it was, and meant to pounce upon 'em."
"The place lies on my mind also," said Mary Ursula. "I wish the doings of that night could be brought to light."
The landlord shook his head, she could not wish it as he wished it.
"I don't think now it ever will be," he said. "At least, I often fear it will not. There is only one person, as I believe, who could throw light upon it; and it does not seem to be his pleasure to speak."
She knew that he alluded to her uncle; and she seized on the moment for speaking a few words that she had long wished to speak to John Bent. In spite of the opinion he held, and that she knew he held, in regard to that past night, she respected the man greatly: she remembered how much her father had respected him.
"I cannot be ignorant, Mr. Bent, of the stigma you would cast on Mr. Castlemaine: the suspicion, I would rather say, lying in your mind against him. I believe that nothing can be more unjust: nothing more inconsistent with the true facts, could they be disclosed."
John Bent was silent. She stood close in the corner, within the shade cast by the slanting bit of stone wall, the blank side wall of the Grey Nunnery towering close above her. John was so near as almost to touch her. The sea was before them, a light twinkling on it here and there in the distance from some fishing vessel; the grass-grown square, once the site of the chapel, with its dottings of low crumbling walls, lay to their left, and beyond it was the Friars' Keep, its gothic door pushed to as usual. A lonely spot altogether it was to stand in, in the silence of the spring night.
"Why should you cherish this suspicion?" she asked.
John Bent tilted his hat slightly up on one side, and slowly rubbed his head. He was a very honest-minded, straightforward man; and though he might on occasion find it inexpedient to avow the truth, he yet would not, even by implication, speak an untruth; or tacitly let one be inferred.
"It is a subject, ma'am, on which my mouth ought to be closed to you."
"Not at all," she answered. "Were I Mr. Castlemaine's wife or daughter you might urge that. I am his niece, it is true; but I have now in a manner withdrawn myself from the world, and----But I will leave that argument and go to another. For my own sake, I wish you to speak openly with me. These troubles lie on my mind; sometimes I cannot sleep for thinking of them."
"I am sure I cannot sleep for them," said John.
"And I think that steps should be taken to put the doubts to flight--if we only knew what steps they could be."
John stooped to lodge the basket on the low top of the grass-grown cliff, jutting upwards before him. But he did not answer.
"Believe me when I say that no thought of reproach on you for entertaining these opinions rests on my mind," proceeded Miss Castlemaine. "I am sure that you conscientiously hold them; that you cannot divest yourself of them; and----"
"I wish I didn't," interposed John. "I only wish I had no cause to."
"There is no cause," she said in a low tone; "no true one. I am as sure of it as that I stand here. Even had it been Mr. Castlemaine whom you saw come in here that night, I feel sure his presence could have been explained away. But I think you must have been mistaken. You have no confirmation that it was he: nay, the confirmation lies rather the other way--that he was not here. Considering all this, I think you ought not to persist in your opinion, Mr. Bent; or to let the world believe you persist in it."
"As I have said before, madam, this is a matter that I don't care to talk to you upon."
"But I wish you to talk to me. I ask you to talk to me. You may see that I speak to you confidentially--do you so speak to me. There is no one else I would thus talk with about it, save you."
"Madam, it's just this--not but what I feel the honour you do me, and thank you for it; and goodness knows what honour I hold and have always held you in, Miss Castlemaine--But it's this, ma'am: your opinion lies one way and mine the other: and while I would not insist toyouthat Mr. Castlemaine was guilty, I yet can't let myself say he was not."
"I am as fully persuaded he was not as that those stars are above us," she said. But John made no reply.
"Mr. Anthony was made away with, madam. I----"
"No, no," she interrupted with a shiver.
"I don't accuse Mr. Castlemaine of having done it," proceeded John. "What I say, and hold to, is this, ma'am: that Mr. Castlemaine must know something of what became of him. But he does not avow it; he keeps silence: and it is that silence that strengthens the suspicions against him. I saw him come in here that night just as surely as I see you here now, Miss Castlemaine. It's true I did not see him so clearly go into the Friar's Keep; these mouldering walls, sticking up here and there a foot or two from the earth, dodge one's eyesight: still I saw the shade of him, like, go in: and in less than a minute my attention was called off Mr. Castlemaine by Mr. Anthony's own movements. I sawhimgo into the Keep: he made for it straight."
"But I say that the person you saw may not have been Mr. Castlemaine," she urged again, after having quietly heard him to the end.
"What other man is there in Greylands, ma'am, of the height and bearing of Mr. Castlemaine--one with the bold, free, upright walk and the gentleman's dress?" returned the landlord. "Only Mr. Harry: and Mr. Harry is too young and slender to be mistaken for his father even in the moonlight. Mr. Harry happened to be away that night at Newerton."
"I think you are cruelly, persistently obstinate. Forgive me, Mr. Bent; I do not wish or intend to hurt your feelings," she added in a gentle, even kind tone. "It seems to me that you must have some animus against Mr. Castlemaine."
"The poor young gentleman was living under my roof, madam. I went forth with him that night, halted with him opposite this very gate, and watched him in. It has sat on my mind always since that I am in a manner accountable for him--that it lies with me to find out what became of him."
"I can understand the feeling and appreciate it," she answered quickly. "In itself it is a good and right feeling; but I think that it's very intensity tends to mislead you, and to cause this very animosity against Mr. Castlemaine. The person you saw come in here may have been a stranger: you have had no confirmation of any kind that it was Mr. Castlemaine: and the eyesight at night is so deceptive."
"Yes I have," said John, dropping his voice to a whisper, and speaking with evident reluctance. "I have had confirmation. Madam, you make me speak against my better will."
"You allude to Anthony," she rejoined somewhat impatiently. "You have said, I know, that he likewise thought it was his uncle--as indeed seems proved by the fact of his following him in. But, it may be that he was only led to think so by some exclamation of yours; that he did not see it with his own eyes. He is not here to prove it, one way or the other. In thus pressing my view of the case, I am only anxious that the fair truth should be established," she resumed after an instant's pause, as though she would explain her own persistency. "I am not wishing to mislead or bias you."
"We both saw him, ma'am, we both saw plainly that it was Mr. Castlemaine; but I did not allude to Mr. Anthony," spoke John, in the same subdued tone. "It has been confirmed by another."
"By whom?" she asked, drawing her cloak together with a sharp movement as though she were cold. "Do not hesitate; tell me all. I have said that I regard this as a confidential interview."
And perhaps John Bent, after what had passed, could find no plea of refusal. He was a very persuadable man when either his good sense or his good feeling was appealed to. As Mrs. Bent was wont to tell him, he had a soft place in his heart.
"Up to last night that ever was, ma'am, I had no idea that Mr. Castlemaine had been seen by any but us. But I find he was. I'll tell you what I've heard. You will perhaps think the evidence not worth much, Miss Castlemaine, for the man who saw him was three parts tipsy at the time: but he must have had his wits about him, for all that."
To make clear to the reader what the landlord was about to relate we must go back to the previous evening. On that evening at twilight, John Bent sauntered over to the beach, and sat down on the bench to smoke his pipe. It was a fine, still evening, favourable for the fishing-boats. While he was smoking peaceably, and gazing at the stars, beginning to show themselves in the sky, Jack Tuff, the sailor, strolled up, gave the landlord the good evening, and took his seat on the same bench. He produced his pipe, evidently wanting to smoke; but he just as evidently had no tobacco. John handed him some, and allowed him to light the pipe by his own. Talking of this and that, they somehow got upon the subject of Anthony Castlemaine's disappearance: and Mr. Tuff, perhaps out of gratitude for the good tobacco, avowed to his astonished companion that he could have confirmed his evidence, had he chosen, as to it having been Mr. Castlemaine who had crossed the road to the chapel ruins that fatal February night.
According to Mr. Jack Tuff's account, his own movements that night had been as follows. He had walked over to the little fishing hamlet, Beeton and taken a glass with a comrade there. It might have been two glasses. At any rate, it was enough to make Jack wish to pay another social visit as he went back to Greylands, instead of going straight home. In one of the three cottages situate at the back of Greylands' Rest, there lodged a sailor friend of Jack's: and accordingly Jack turned up Chapel Lane--the nearest way from where he then was--to make the call. There he stayed until late, taking other glasses, very late indeed for the quiet village; and he turned out considerably after eleven o'clock with unsteady legs. He staggered down Chapel Lane pretty safely until he neared the other end of it. When opposite the turning to the Hutt, who should emerge from that turning but some tall man. At the moment, Jack Tuff happened to be holding on with one arm to a tree trunk, to steady himself: but he made it out to be Mr. Castlemaine, and attempted to pull his old round hat off in token of respect. He did not know whether Mr. Castlemaine saw him; but fancied he did not see him. Mr. Castlemaine went up the lane towards his home, and Jack Tuff went on down it.
So far, that might be regarded as a corroboration of the Master of Greylands' statement at the time--namely, that he had left the Hutt about half-past eleven after smoking a pipe with the Commodore: and the probability seemed to be that Mr. Castlemaine had not seen Jack Tuff, or he might have called on him to confirm his testimony as to the hour.
Jack Tuff continued his progress down the small remaining portion of the lane, trying all the while to put on his hat: which he had succeeded in getting off at last. Something was undoubtedly the matter with either the head or the hat; for the hat would not go on the head, or the head into the hat. A branch of a tree, or something, caught Jack's elbow, and the hat dropped; Jack, in stooping for it, dropped also; and there he was, sitting amid the trunks of trees on the side of the lane, his back propped against one of them and his hat nowhere.
How long Jack remained there he did not pretend to say. His impression was that he fell asleep; but whether that was so, or not, Jack could not have told had he been bribed with a golden sovereign. At any rate, the next thing he heard or remembered, was, that some steps were coming down the lane. Jack looked up, and saw they were those of the Master of Greylands.
"Are you sure it was him?" interrupted John Bent, at this point of the narration, edging a little bit nearer to Jack on the bench.
"In course I'm sure," replied Jack Tuff. "The moonlight shone full upon him through the leafless branches of the trees, and I saw him plain. He didn't see me that time, for sure. I was in the dark, back amid the clump o' trees; and he went along with his head and eyes straight afore him to the end o' the lane."
"And where did he go then?"
"Don't know. He didn't come back again. Suppose he was crossing over to the Keep."
"Well, go on," said John.
There was not much more to tell. After this incident, the passing of the Master of Greylands, Mr. Tuff bethought himself that he might as well be getting homewards. To make a start, however, was not easy of accomplishment. First he had to find his hat, which took up some considerable tune: it was only when he had given it up for lost that he became conscious it was doubled up under him as he sat. Next he had to pull out his match-box and light his pipe: and that also took time. Lastly he had to get upon his legs, a work requiring skill, but accomplished by the friendly aid of the trees. Altogether from a quarter to half an hour must have been used in the process. Once fairly started and clear of the lane, he came upon Mr. Bent, pacing about opposite the ruins and waiting for Mr. Anthony Castlemaine.
"Did you hear the pistol-shot?" asked John Bent when the recital was over.
"Never heard it at all," said Jack Tuff. "I must have been feeling for my hat."
"And why did you not say at the time that you saw the Master of Greylands--and so have borne out my story?" demanded John Bent as a final question.
"I dare say!" retorted Jack Tuff: "and he laughed at for an imbecile who was drunk and saw double! Nobody 'ud believe me. I'm not a going to say it now, Mr. Bent, except to you. I'm not a going to draw down Mr. Castlemaine upon me, and perhaps get put away in gaol."
And this was all John Bent got from him. That the man spoke the strict truth according to his belief--namely, that it was Mr. Castlemaine he saw both times that night--John could have staked his life upon. But that the man was equally determined not to say so much to the world, fearing the displeasure of Mr. Castlemaine: nay, that he probably would deny it in toto if the world questioned him, the landlord was equally sure of.
Miss Castlemaine heard the narrative in silence. It did not shake her belief in the innocence of her uncle; but it made it more difficult to confute John Bent, and she was now sorry to have spoken to him at all. With a deep sigh she turned to depart.
"We can only wait the elucidation that time will bring," she said to the landlord. "Rely upon it that if any ill deed was done that night, Mr. Castlemaine had no hand in it."
John Bent maintained a respectful silence. They crossed the ruins, and he held open the gate for her to pass through. Just then she remembered another topic, and spoke of it.
"What is it that appears at the casements here, in the guise of a Grey Friar? Two of the Sisters have been alarmed by it to-night."
"Something like a dozen people have been scared by it lately," said John. "As to what it is, ma'am,Idon't know. Senseless idiots, to be frightened! as if a ghost could harm us! I should like to see it appear tome!"
With this answer, betraying not only his superiority to the Greylands world in general, but his inward bravery, and a mutual goodnight, they parted. John going up the hill with his basket; Miss Castlemaine turning towards the Nunnery, and pondering deeply.
Strange, perhaps, to say, considering the state Jack Tuff was avowedly in that eventful night, a conviction that his sight had not deceived him, had taken hold of her. That some mystery did attach to that night, independent of the disappearance of Anthony, she had always fancied: and this evidence only served to confirm it. Many a time the thought had arisen in her mind, but only to be driven back again, that her uncle was not as open in regard to that night's doings as he ought to be. Had it been possible that such an accusation, such a suspicion, whether openly made or only implied, had been brought against herself, she should have stood boldly forth to confront her accusers and assert her innocence, have taken Heaven to witness to it, if needs were. He had not done this; he had never spoken of it voluntarily, good or bad; in short, he shunned the subject--and it left an unsatisfactory impression. What should Mr. Castlemaine want in the chapel ruins at that midnight hour?--what could he want? But if it was he who went in why did he deny it? Put it that it was really Mr. Castlemaine, why then the inference was that he must know what became of Anthony. It seemed very strange altogether; a curious, unaccountable, mysterious affair. Mary felt it to be so. Not that she lost an iota of faith in her uncle; she seemed to trust him as she would have trusted her father; but her mind was troubled, her brain was in a chaos of confusion.
In some such confusion as she stepped bodily into a minute later. At the gate of the Nunnery she found herself in the midst of a small crowd, a small excited number of people who were running up and jostled her. Women were crying and panting, girls were pushing: a man with some object covered up in his arms, was in the midst. When the garb of Miss Castlemaine was recognized in the gloom as that of the Grey Sisters, all fell respectfully back.
"What is amiss, good people!" asked Sister Mary Ursula. And a faint moan of sympathy escaped her as she heard the answer. Polly Gleeson, one of Tim Gleeson's numerous little ones, had set her night-gown on fire and was terribly burnt. Tim was somewhere abroad, as usual: but another man had offered to bring the child to the Grey Ladies--the usual refuge for accidents and sickness.
Admitted to the Nunnery, the little sufferer was carried up to one of the small beds always kept in readiness. Sister Mildred herself, who was great in burns, came to her at once, directing two of the Sisters what was to be done. The sobbing mother, Nancy Gleeson, who was a great simpleton but had a hard life of it on the whole, asked whether she might not stay and watch by Polly for the night: but the Ladies recommended her to go home to her other children and to leave Polly to them in all confidence. Sister Mildred pronounced the burns, though bad to look at and very painful, not to be attended with danger: should the latter arise, she promised Nancy Gleeson to send for her at once. So Nancy went away pacified, the crowd attending her; and the good Ladies were left to their charge and to the night-watch it entailed.
But Sister Mary Ursula had recognized, among the women and girls pressing round the gate, the face of Jane Hallet. She recognized the dress also, as the one she had seen before that night.
Meanwhile John Bent reached the coastguard station. After chatting with the sick woman's husband, Henry Mann, who happened to be off duty and at home, John departed again with his empty basket. He chanced to be on the side opposite the Friar's Keep; for that path led direct from the preventive station--just as the two Sisters, Ann and Rachel, had taken it rather more than an hour earlier. John Bent, quite unconscious of what had happened to them, walked along leisurely, his mind full of the interview just held with Miss Castlemaine. In passing the Friar's Keep he cast his eyes up to it. Few people passed it at night without casting up their eyes--for the fascination that superstition has for most of us is irresistible. Were we told that a ghost was in the next lane, a large percentage of us would run off to see it. Even as John looked, a faint light dawned on the casement from within: and there came into view the figure, bearing its lamp. It was probably just at that selfsame moment that the eyes of Madame Guise, gazing stealthily from the window of Mr. Castlemaine's study, were regaled with the same sight. John Bent did not like it any more than madame did; any more than the Sisters did. He took to his heels, and arrived at the Dolphin in a state of cold chill indescribable.
Greylands lay, calm and monotonous, basking under the morning sun. There were no signs of any of the commotion that had stirred it the previous night: no crowding people surrounding a sad little burden; no women's cries; and John Bent's propriety had come back to him. Greylands had heard the news from one end to the other--the Grey Monk had been abroad again. It had appeared to two of the Sisters and to the landlord of the Dolphin.
The burnt child, an intelligent girl of five years old, lay in the little bed, Sister Phoebe sitting with her. The window of the room faced the road; it had upright iron bars before it: originally placed there, perhaps, to prevent the nuns putting their heads out to take a sly peep at the world. Polly Gleeson was in less pain, and lay quietly. Mr. Parker had looked in, and confirmed Sister Mildred's opinion that she would do well.
The door opened gently, and there entered Sister Mary Ursula and Miss Reene. Ethel, hearing of the accident, had come down from Greylands' Rest. Sister Phoeby rose, smiling and nodding, and they approached the bed.
"She is ever so much better," said the watching Sister. "See, she does not cry at all."
Polly was a pretty little girl. Her brown hair lay around her on the bolster; her dark eyes smiled at the ladies. The face was not touched, and nothing could be seen of the injuries as she lay: the worst of them were about the chest and shoulders. Tears stood in Ethel's eyes.
"Poor little Polly!" she said, stooping gently to kiss her. "How did it happen, little one?"
"Billy took the candle to look for a marble on the floor, and I looked too; and then there come a great light and mother screeched out."
"But were you not in bed before that time, Folly? It was past nine o'clock."
"Mother was undressing of us then: she'd been a busy washing."
"Poor little darling! Well, Polly, you will be well soon; and you must take great care of candles after this."
Polly gave as emphatic a nod as the bolster allowed her; as much as to say she would never go within wide range of a candle again. Miss Castlemaine took Sister Phoeby's place, and the latter went away.
That the child was now at ease, appeared evident; for presently her eyelids, heavy with sleep, gradually closed. She had had no sleep all night. Mary Ursula took some work from her pocket. The Sisters were making garments for this child: all she had--and a poor "all" it was--had been from the floor by the terrified mother, and caught up rolled round her to put the fire out.
"How peaceful it seems here," said Ethel in a low tone. "I think I should like to come and be a Sister with you, Mary."
Miss Castlemaine smiled one of her sad smiles. "That would never do, Ethel."
"It is so useful a life."
"You will find usefulness in another sphere. It would not berightthat you should bury yourself here."
"We all told you that, Mary, you know, at Greylands' Rest. But you have done it."
"My dear, the cases are essentially different. My hopes of happiness, my prospects in the world were over: yours, Ethel, are not even yet in the bud. When some good man shall woo and win you, you will find where your proper sphere of usefulness lies."
"I don't want to be won," spoke Ethel: just as young girls are given to say. "I'm sure I would ten times be a Grey Sister than marry Harry Castlemaine."
Mary looked up with unusual quickness. The words brought to her mind one of the incidents of the past night.
"Harry does not continue to tease you, does he, Ethel?"
"Yes he does. I thought he had left it off: but this morning he brought the subject up again--and he let everybody hear him!"
"What did he say?"
"Not very much. It was when he was going out of the room after breakfast. He turned his head to me and said he hoped I should soon be ready with my answer to the question he had put to me more than once. Papa and mamma must have understood what he meant. I could have thrown the loaf after him."
"I think he must be only doing it in joke, Ethel," was the slow, thoughtful rejoinder.
"I don't know whether he is or not. Sometimes I think he is; at others I think he is in earnest: whichever it may he, I dislike it very much. Not for the whole world would I marry Harry Castlemaine."
"Ethel, I fancy--I am not sure, but I fancy--you have no real cause to fear he will press it, or to let it trouble you. Harry is hardly staid enough yet to settle down. He does many random things."
"We have had quite a commotion at home this morning," resumed Ethel, passing to another topic. "Somebody locked Flora in her bedroom last night--when she wanted to run out this morning as usual, the door was fast. Mamma has been so angry: and when the news of Polly Gleeson's accident came up just now, she began again, saying Flora might just as well have been burnt also as not, burnt to death."
"Who locked her in?"
"I don't know--unless it was Madame Guise. Papa and mamma and I were at dinner at Stilborough--at the Barclays', Mary. Harry would not go. It was a nice party. We had singing in the evening."
"But about the door?"
"Well, Madame Guise thought she might have unintentionally done it. She said she went in last night to look at Flora. I can scarcely think she did it, for she had gone in many a time and never turned the key before. Or the keys of other doors, either."
"At least, it does not seem to have been of any consequence.
"No; only mamma made it so. I tell you every little trifle that I can, Mary," she added, laughing quietly. "Shut up here, it seems to me that you must like to hear news from the outer world."
"And so I do," was the answer. "I have not lost all interest in my fellow pilgrims, I assure you, Ethel."
"I wore my black net trimmed with white satin ribbons: you can't think how nice it looked, Mary," said Miss Ethel, some of her vanity creeping to the fore. "And a silver flower in my hair."
"I have no doubt the dress and the flower did look well, considering what a pretty girl it was adorning," was Mary's reply. And Ethel blushed slightly. She knew how nice-looking she was.
"Does Madame Guise continue to suit?"
"Oh, quite well. Mrs. Castlemaine thinks there's nobody to equal her. I like her also; but at times she puzzles me."
"How does she puzzle you?"
"Well, I can hardly explain it. She seems strange at times. But I must be going," added Ethel, rising.
"You are in a hurry, Ethel."
"I have to go up the cliff to Miss Hallet's. Jane is hem-stitching some handkerchiefs for mamma. Mamma had one of them with her last night: Mrs. Barclay saw the work, and said she would like some done for herself. So I am to tell Jane to call at Mrs. Barclay's the next time she goes to Stilborough. The work is really beautiful: it is the broad hem-stitch, you know, Mary: four or five rows of it."
A few more words spoken in the same low tone, lest the sleeping child should be disturbed, and Ethel took her departure. Opposite the beach she encountered Mrs. Bent: who was crossing back home in her cherry-ribboned cap from a purchase at Pike's tea and general shop.
"A nice day again, Miss Ethel!"
"It is a lovely day," said Ethel, stopping; for she and Mrs. Bent were great friends. "I have been in to see poor Polly Gleeson. How badly she is burnt!"
"The only wonder is that it never happened before, with that imbecile of a mother," was Mrs. Bent's tart rejoinder. "Of all incapable women, Nancy Gleeson's about the worst. Fancy her letting the children play with a candle in their night-gowns! Where could her senses have been?"
"Well, it is a sad thing for Polly. But the Sisters say she will do well. Oh, by the way, Mrs. Bent," continued Ethel, turning as she was going onward, "will you let mamma have your receipt for stewed eels again? The new cook does not do them to her mind and mamma cannot tell where the fault lies."
"It's the best receipt for eels in the three kingdoms," spoke Mrs. Bent with pride. "It was my mother's before me."
"Will you step across for it now, Miss Ethel?"
"Not now: as I come back. I am going up the cliff."
"To that Nancy Gleeson's, I suppose," cried Mrs. Bent in her free manner. "She does not deserve it. If I had twenty children about me, I'll be bound not one of 'em should ever set itself alight in my presence."
"Not there," said Ethel slightly laughing at Mrs. Bent's tartness. "I am taking a message from mamma to Jane Hallet."
"I hope it is to warn her not to make herself so free with Mr. Harry," cried Mrs. Bent, speaking on the moment's impulse. Had she taken time for thought she would not have said it.
"Warn her not to make herself so free with Mr. Harry!" repeated Ethel, somewhat haughtily. "Why, Mrs. Bent what can you mean?"
"Well, I have seen them walking together after nightfall," said Mrs. Bent, unable to eat her words.
"They may have met accidentally," returned Ethel after a pause.
"Oh, of course, theymay," assented Mrs. Bent in a significant tone.
"Since when have you seen them?" pursued Ethel, feeling surprised and rather scandalized.
"Ah, well, I can't tell that. Since last autumn, though. No harm may be meant, Miss Ethel; I don't say it is; and none may come of it: but young girls in Jane Hallet's position ought to take better care of themselves than to give rise to talk."
Ethel continued her way to the cliff in some annoyance. While Mr. Harry Castlemaine made a pretence of addressing herself, it was not agreeable to hear that he was flirting with the village girls. It's true Ethel did not intend to listen to his suit: she absolutely rejected it; but that made little difference. Neither in itself was this walking with Jane Hallet the right thing. What if he made Ana fond of him? many a possibility was more unlikely than that. As to any "harm" arising, as Mrs. Bent had just phrased it, Ethel did not fear that--did not, in fact, cast a thought to it. Jane Hallet was far superior to the general run of girls at Greylands. She had been well educated by the Grey Ladies, morally and else, having gone to school to them daily for years; she was modest and reticent in manner; and Ethel would as soon believe a breath of scandal could tarnish herself as Jane. Her brother, George Hallet, who was drowned, had been made a sort of companion of by Harry Castlemaine during the last year or two of his life, as Greylands well remembered: and Ethel came to the conclusion that the intimacy Mrs. Bent talked of must be a sort of remnant of that friendship, meaning nothing: and so she dismissed it from her mind. Mrs. Bent, as Ethel knew, was rather given to find fault with her neighbours' doings.
Now it happened that as Ethel was ascending the cliff, Jane Hallet, within the pretty cottage near the top of it, was being taken to task by her aunt for the same fault that Mrs. Bent had spoken of--the staying abroad after nightfall. Miss Hallet had latterly found much occasion to speak on this score; but Jane was invariably ready with some plausible excuse; so that Miss Hallet, naturally unsuspicious, and trusting Jane as she would have trusted herself, never made much by the argument.
After taking the cambric handkerchief to Greylands' Rest the previous evening, Jane had gone home, swallowed her tea hastily, put off the best things that her aunt grumbled at her for having put on and then sat down to work. Some article was wanted in the house; and at dusk Jane ran down in her dark cloak to get it. From which expedition she did not get back until half-past nine was turned: and she seemed to have come up like one running for a wager. Miss Hallet was then ill with an attack of spasms, and Jane remained unreproved. This morning when the housework was done, and they had begun their sewing, Miss Hallet had leisure to recur to it. Jane sat by the window, busy at one of the handkerchiefs. The sun shone on her bright flaxen hair; the light print dress she wore was neat and nice--as Jane's dresses always were.
"How long does it take to get from here to Pike's shop and back again, Jane?"
"From here to Pike's shop and back again, aunt?--I could do it in a short ten minutes," said unsuspicious Jane, fancying her aunt might be wanting to send her there. "It would take you longer, of course."
"How did it happen then last night that it took you two hours and ten minutes?" demanded Miss Hallet. "You left here soon after half past seven, and you did not get back till close upon ten."
The soft colour in Jane's face grew bright on a sudden. She held her work to the window, as though some difficulty had occurred in the cambric.
"After buying the sugar, I went into the parlour to say good evening to Susan Pike, aunt. And then there came that dreadful outcry about Nancy Gleeson's poor burnt child."
The truth, but not the whole truth. Miss Jane had stayed three minutes with Susan Pike; and the commotion about the child had occurred some two hours later. The intervening time she did not allude to, or account for. Miss Hallet, never thinking to inquire minutely into time, so far accepted the explanation.
"If Nancy Gleeson's children had all been burnt, that's no reason why you should stay out all that while."
"Nearly everybody was out, aunt. It was like a fair around the Nunnery gate."
"You go off here; you go off there; pretty nigh every evening you dance out somewhere. I'm sure I never did so when I was a girl."
"When it is too dusk to see to work and too soon to light the candle, a run down the cliff does no harm," returned Jane.
"Yes, but you stay when once you are down. It comes of that propensity of yours for gossip, Jane. Once you get into the company of Susan Pike or that idle Patty Nettleby, you take as much thought of time as you might if all the clocks stopped still for you."
Jane bent to bite off a needleful of cotton--by which her flushed face was hidden.
"There you are! How often have I told you not to bite your thread! Many a set of teeth as good as yours has been ruined by it. I had the habit once; but my lady broke me of it. Use your scissors, and--Dear me! here's Miss Reene."
Ethel came in. Jane stood up to receive her and to hear her message. The girl's face was shy, and her manner was very retiring. Ethel thought of what she had just heard; certainly Jane looked pretty enough to attract Mr. Harry Castlemaine. But the blue eyes, raised to hers, were honest and good; and Ethel believed Jane was good also.
"Thank you: yes, I shall be glad to do the handkerchiefs for Mrs. Barclay," said Jane. "But I shall not be going into Stilborough for a week or so: I was there yesterday. And of course I should not begin them until I have finished Mrs. Castlemaine's."
"Very well; I suppose Mrs. Barclay is in no particular hurry," said Ethel.
"Jane might get through more work if she chose," remarked Miss Hallet. "Not that I wish her to do any: it is her own will entirely. On the other hand, I have no objection to it: and as she is fond of finer clothes than I should purchase for her, she has to get them for herself. Just before you came in, Miss Reene, I was telling her how she fritters away her time. Once dusk has set in, down she goes to her acquaintances in the village, and there she stays with one and another of them, never heeding anything else. It is a great waste of time."
Of all the hot faces, Jane's at that moment was the hottest. She was standing before Miss Reene, going on with her work as she stood. Ethel wondered why she coloured so.
"To-night she stays at Susan Pike's; to-morrow night it's at Martha Nettleby's; the next night it's at old. Mother Dance's, under the cliff!" went on Miss Hallet. "Chattering with one gossip and another, and dancing after burnt children, and what not, Jane never lacks an excuse for idling away her evenings."
"Mrs. Castlemaine said something about having her initials worked on these handkerchiefs: do you know whether she wishes it done, Miss Reene?" interposed Jane, who seemed to be flurried by the lecture. "I did not like to ask about it yesterday afternoon."
"I don't know at all," said Ethel "You had better see Mrs. Castlemaine."
"Very well, ma'am."
Ethel went down the cliff again, tripping along the zigzag path. Other paths branched off to other cottages. She took one that brought her to the door of Tim Gleeson's hut: a poor place of two rooms, with a low roof. Tim, a very idle, improvident, easy, and in general good-tempered man, sat on a stone at the door, his blue cloth legs stretched out, his rough face gloomy. "You are not in the boat to-day, Tim," remarked Ethel.
"Not to-day, Miss Castlemaine," said the man, slowly rising. "I'm a going out with the next tide. This accident have took all strength out of me! When a lot of 'em come fizzing into the Dolphin last night, a saying our Polly was afire, you might ha' knocked me down with a feather. Mrs. Bent she went on at me like anything, she did--as if it was my fault! Telling me she'd like to shut the inn doors again' me, for I went there when I ought to be elsewhere, and that I warn't good for my salt. I'd rather it had been any of 'em nor Polly: she's such a nice little thing, she is."
"Is your wife indoors?"
"No; she's off to the Nunnery. I've vowed to her that if she ever gets another end o' candle in the house, I'll make her eat it," concluded Tim, savagely.
"But she must have a candle to see with."
"I don't care: I won't have the young 'uns burnt like this. Thanks to you, miss, for turning out o' your way to think on us. The brats be a squalling indoors. I've just give 'em a licking all round."
Ethel ran on, and gained the Dolphin, entering it by the more familiar door that stood open opposite the beach. Mr. and Mrs. Bent were both in the room: he, reading his favourite weekly newspaper by the fire, the Stilborough Herald: she, sitting at the table under the window, stoning a plate of raisins. The receipt Ethel had asked for lay ready.
"You'll please tell Mrs. Castlemaine, Miss Ethel, that more or less pounded mace can be put according to taste," observed the landlady, as she handed Ethel the paper. "There's no particular quantity specified. It's strong: and a little of it goes a great way."
Ethel sat down by the table, putting a raisin into her mouth. John, who had risen to greet her, resumed his seat again. To say the truth, Miss Ethel liked running into the Dolphin: it made an agreeable interlude to the general dulness of Greylands' Rest. The screen introduced into the room during the late wintry weather, had been taken away again. Mrs. Bent had a great mind to break it up, and burn it; but for that screen Ethel Reene would not have overheard those dangerous words. But no allusion had been made to the affair since, by any one of them: all three seemed content to ignore it.
"You must excuse my going on with my work, Miss Ethel," said Mrs. Bent. "We've got a dinner on to-night, and I had no notice of it till a few minutes ago. Some grand Inspector-General of the coastguard stations is here to-day; and he and two or three more gentlemen are going to dine here this evening. Mr. Castlemaine, I fancy, is to be one of them."
"Mr. Castlemaine is!" cried Ethel.
"Either him or Mr. Harry. I b'lieve it's him. And me with not a raisin in the house stoned for plum-pudding! I must make haste if I am to get it boiled. It's not often I'm taken unawares like this."
"If you will give me an apron to put on, I'll help you to stone them," said Ethel, taking off her black gloves.
"Now, Miss Ethel! As if I'd let you do anything of the kind! But that's just like you--always ready to do anybody a good turn."
"You give me the apron, please."
"I couldn't. If any of them from Greylands' Rest happened to look in, they'd be fit to snap at me; and at you, too, Miss Ethel. Seeing you stoning plums, indeed! There's no need, either: I am three parts through them."
Ethel began to do a few without the apron, in a desultory kind of way, and eat two or three more. John Bent came to some paragraph in the newspaper that excited his ire.
"Hear this!" he cried in anger. "Hear it, Miss Ethel! What a shame!"
"We have been given to understand that the rumour so freely circulated during this past week, of a matrimonial engagement having been made between Mr. Blake-Gordon and the heiress of Mountsorrel, has had no foundation in fact."
"The villain!" cried Mrs. Bent, momentarily forgetting her work. "He can hardly be bad enough to think of another yet."
Ethel's work was arrested too. She gazed at John Bent, a raisin in one hand, a stone in the other. That any man could be so fickle-hearted as this, she had not believed.
"I knew the tale was going about," said the landlord; "I heard it talked of in Stilborough last market day, Miss Ethel. Any way, true or untrue, they say he is a good deal over at the Mountsorrels, and----"
John Bent brought his words to a standstill; rose, and laid down his newspaper. There had entered a rather peculiar looking elderly gentleman, tall and upright yet, with a stout walking stick in his hand. He wore a long blue coat with wide skirts and brass buttons, drab breeches and top boots. His hair was long and snow white, his dark eyes were fiery.
Taking off his broad-brimmed hat with old fashioned courtesy, he looked round the room, particularly at Mrs. Bent and Ethel stoning the raisins. It is just possible he mistook the latter for a daughter of the house, dressed in her Sunday best.
"Thisisthe Dolphin, I think!" he cried dubiously.
"At your service, sir," said John.
"Ay, I thought so. But the door seems altered. Its a good many years since I was here. Oh--ay,--I see. Front door on the other side. And you are its landlord--John Bent."
"Well, sir, I used to be."
"Just so. We shall do. I have walked over from Stilborough to see you. I want to know the truth of this dreadful report--that has but now reached my ears."
"The report, sir?" returned John--and it was perhaps natural that he should have his head filled at the moment with Mr. Blake-Gordon and the report touchinghim. "I believe I don't know anything about it."
"Not know anything about it! But I am told that you know all about it. Come!"
Ethel was rubbing her hands on Mrs. Bent's cloth preparatory to drawing on her gloves to depart. To help stone raisins in private at the inn was one thing; to help when visitors came in was a different thing altogether. John Bent, looked back at the stranger.
"Perhaps we are at cross-purposes, sir. If you will tell me what you mean, I may be able to answer you."
"Him that I would ask about is the son of the friend of my early days, Basil the Careless. Young Anthony Castlemaine."
The change of ideas from Mr. Blake-Gordon to the unfortunate Anthony was sudden: John Bent gave a groan, and coughed it down. The gentleman resumed, after turning to look at Ethel as she went out.
"Is it true that he, Basil Castlemaine's son, came over the seas to this place a month or two ago?--and took up his abode at this inn?--and put in a claim to his grandfather's estate, Greylands' Rest? Is that true?"
"Yes, sir."
"And where is he, this young Anthony?"
"I don't know, sir. I wish I did know."
"Is it true that he disappeared in some singular way one night--and that he has never since been seen or heard of?"
"That's true, sir--more's the pity."
The questioner took a step nearer John Bent, and dropped his voice to a low, solemn key.
"I am told that foul play has been at work."
"Foul play?" stammered John, not knowing whether this strange old man might be friend or foe--whether he might have come there to call him to account for his random words. The stranger paused to notice his changing face, and then resumed.
"That the young man has been put out of the way by his uncle--James Castlemaine."