Miss Hallet stood in the parlour of her pretty cottage on the cliff. For a wonder, she was doing nothing--being usually a most industrious body. As she stood upright in deep thought, her spare, straight, up-and-down figure motionless, her pale face still, it might be seen that some matter was troubling her mind. The matter was this: Jane (as she phrased it to herself) was getting beyond her.
A week or more had elapsed since the night Jane had made the accident to Polly Gleeson an excuse for staying out late. Children could not be burnt every night,--and yet the fault continued. Each night, since then, had she been out, and stayed later than she ought to stay: a great deal later than her aunt considered was at all proper or expedient. On the previous night, Miss Hallet had essayed to stop it. When Jane put on her cloak to take what she called her run down the cliff, Miss Hallet in her stern, quiet way, had said, "You are not going this evening, Jane." Jane's answer had been, "I must go, aunt; I have something to do"--and went.
"What's to be done if she won't mind me?" deliberated Miss Hallet. "I can't lock her up: she's too old for it. What she can possibly want, flying down the cliff night after night, passes my comprehension. As to sitting with Goody Dance or any other old fish-wife, as Jane sometimes tells me she has been doing, I don't believe a word of it. Its not in the nature of young girls to shut themselves up so much with the aged. Why, I have heard Jane callmeold behind my back--and I want a good twenty or thirty years of old Dame Dance's age."
Miss Hand stopped a minute, to listen to sounds overhead. Jane was up there making the beds. She soon resumed her reflections.
"No, it's not Mother Dance, or any other old mother. It's her love of tattle and gossip. When young girls can get together, they'd talk of the moon if there was no other subject at hand--chattering geese! But that there's not a young chap in all the village that Jane would condescend to look at, I might think she had picked up a sweetheart. She holds herself too high for any of them. And quite right too: sheisabove them. They are but a parcel of poor fishers: and as to that young Pike, who serves in his father's shop, he has no more sense in him, and Jane knows it, than a kite's tail. No, it's not sweethearts! it's dawdling and gossip along with Susan Pike and the rest of the foolish girls. But oh, how things have changed!--to think that Jane Hallet should consort with such!"
Miss Hallet lifted her eyes to the ceiling, as though she could see through it what Jane was about. By the sound it seemed that she was sweeping the carpet.
"She is a good girl on the whole; I own that," went on Miss Hallet. "Up betimes in a morning, and keeping steady to whatever she has to do, whether it may be housework or sewing: and never gadding in the day-time. The run in the evening does her good, she says: perhaps so: but the staying late doesn't. I don't like to be harsh with her," continued Miss Hallet, after a pause. "She stands alone, save for me, now her brother's gone--and she grieves after him still. Moreover, I am not sure that Jane would stand any harsh authority, if I did put it forth. Poor George would not--though I am sure I only wanted to control him for his good: he went off and made a home for himself down in the village: and Jane has a touch of her brother's spirit. There's the difficulty."
At this moment Jane ran down the stairs with a broom and dust-pan, and went into the kitchen. Presently she came forth in her bonnet and shawl, a small basket in her hand.
"Where are you off to?" asked Miss Hallet snappishly. For if she did acknowledge to herself that Jane was a good girl, there was no necessity to let Jane know it. And Miss Hallet was one of those rigid, well-meaning people who can hardly ever speak to friend or foe without appearing cross. All for their good, of course: as this tart tone was for Jane's.
"To buy the eggs, aunt. You told me I was to go for them when I had done the rooms."
"I'll go for the eggs myself," said Miss Hallet, "I'll not be beholden to you to do my errands. Take your bonnet off and get to your work. Those handkerchiefs of Mrs. Castlemaine's don't seem to progress very quickly."
"They are all finished but one, aunt. There have been the initial letters to work--which Mrs. Castlemaine decided afterwards to have done; and the letters take time."
"Put off your things, I say."
Jane went away with her bonnet and shawl, came back, and sat down to her sewing. She did not say, Why are you so angry with me? she knew quite well why it was, and preferred to avoid unsatisfactory topics. Miss Hallet deliberately attired herself, and went out for the eggs. They kept no servant: the ordinary work of the house was light: and when rougher labour was required, washing and cleaning, a woman came in from the village to do it. The Hallets were originally of fairly good descent. Miss Hallet had been well reared, and her instincts were undoubtedly those of a gentlewoman: but when in early life she found that she would have to turn out in the world and work for her living, it was a blow that she never could get over. A feeling of blight took possession of her even now when she looked back at that time. In the course of years she retired on the money bequeathed to her, and on some savings of her own. Her brother (who had never risen higher than to be the captain of a small schooner) had then become a widower with two children. He died: and these children were left to the mercy of the world, very much as he and his sister had been left some twenty years before. Miss Hallet took to them. George was drowned: it has been already stated: Jane was with her still; and, as the reader sees, was not altogether giving satisfaction. In Miss Hallet's opinion, Jane's destiny was already fixed: she would lead a single life, and grow gradually into an old maid, as she herself had done. Miss Hallet considered it the best destiny Jane could invoke: whether it was or not, there seemed to be no help for it. Men whom she would have deemed Jane's equals, were above them in position: and she believed Jane would not look at an inferior. So Miss Hallet had continued to live on in her somewhat isolated life; civil to the people around her but associating with none; and always conscious that her fortunes and her just merits were at variance.
She attired herself in a rather handsome shawl and close straw bonnet, and went down the cliff after the required eggs. Jane sat at the open parlour window, busy over the last of Mrs. Castlemaine's handkerchiefs. She wore her neat morning print gown, with its small white collar and bow of fresh lilac ribbon, and looked cool and pretty. Miss Hallet grumbled frightfully at anything like extravagance in dress; but at the same time would have rated Jane soundly had she seen her untidy or anything but nice in any one particular. When the echo of her aunt's footsteps had fully died away, Jane laid the handkerchief on the table, and took from her pocket some other material, which she began to work at stealthily.
That's the right word for it--stealthily. For she glanced cautiously around as if the very moss on the cliff side would take note of it, and she kept her ears well on the alert, to guard against surprise. Miss Hallet had told her she did not get on very quickly with the handkerchiefs: but Miss Hallet did not know, or suspect, that when times were propitious--namely, when she herself was away from observation, or Jane safely shut up in her own room--the handkerchiefs were discarded for this other work. And yet, the work regarded casually, presented no private or ugly features. It looked like a strip of fine lawn, and was just as nice-looking and snowy as the cambric on the table.
Jane's fingers plied quickly their needle and thread. Presently she slipped a pattern of thin paper out of her pocket, unfolded it, and began to cut the lawn according to its fashion. While thus occupied, her attentive ear caught the sound of approaching footsteps: in a trice, pattern and work were in her pocket again out of sight, and she was diligently pursuing the hem-stitching of the handkerchief.
A tall, plain girl, with straggling curls of a deep red darkened the window: Miss Susan Pike, daughter of Pike, the well-to-do grocer and general dealer. Deep down in Jane Hallet's heart there had always lain an instinctive consciousness, warning her that she was superior to this girl, as well as to Matty Nettleby, of quite a different order altogether: but the young crave companionship, and will have it, suitable or unsuitable, where it is to be had. The only youngladyin the place was Ethel Reene, and Jane Hallet's good sense told her that that companionship would be just as unsuitable the other way: she might as well aspire to covet an intimacy with a duchess's daughter as with Miss Reene.
"Weil, youarehard at work this morning, Jane!" was Miss Susan Pike's unceremonious and somewhat resentful salutation, as she put her hands upon the window-sill and, her head inside. For she did not at all favour work herself.
"Will you come in, Susan?" returned Jane, rising and unslipping the bolt of the door: which she had slipped after the departure of her aunt.
"Them are Mrs. Castlemaine's handkerchiefs, I suppose," observed Susan, responding to the invitation and taking a chair. "Grand fine cambric, ain't it! Well, Jane, you do hem-stitch well, I must say."
"I have to work her initials on them also," remarked Jane. "S.C."
"S.C.," repeated Miss Pike. "What do the S. stand for? What's her Chris'en name?"
"Sophia."
"Sophia!--that is a smart name. Do you work the letters in satin stitch?"
"Yes. With the dots on each side it."
"You learnt all that fine hem-stitching and braider-work at the Nunnery, Jane--and your aunt knows how to do it too, I suppose.Ishouldn't have patience for it. I'd rather lade out treacle all day: and of all precious disagreeable articles our shop serves, treacle's the worst. I hate it--sticking one's hands, and messing the scales. I broke a basin yesterday morning, lading it out," continued Miss Susan: "let it slip through my fingers. Sister Phoebe came in for a pound of it, to make the ladies a pudding for dinner, she said; and I let her basin drop. Didn't mother rate me!"
"Did Sister Phoebe say how the child was getting on?--Polly Gleeson."
"Polly's three parts well, I think. Old Parker does not go across there any more. I say, Jane, I came up to ask if you'd come along with me to Stilborough this afternoon."
"I can't," said Jane. "My aunt has been very angry with me this morning. I should no more dare to ask her to let me go to Stilborough to-day than I should dare to fly."
"What has she been angry about?"
"Oh, about my not getting on with my work, and one thing or other," replied Jane carelessly. "She would not let me fetch some eggs just now; she's gone herself. And she knows that in a few days' time I shall have to go to Stilborough on my own account."
"She's a nice article for an aunt!" grumbled Miss Susan. "I've got to order in some things for the shop, and I thought it would be pleasant for us two to walk there together. You are sure you can't come Jane?"
"Quite sure. It is of no use talking of it."
"I must ask Matty Nettleby, then. But I'd rather have had you."
Miss Susan, who was somewhat younger than Jane, and wore dirty pink bonnet strings, which did not contrast well with the red curls, and a tumbled, untidy frock (but who would no doubt go off on her expedition to Stilborough finer than an African queen) fingered discontentedly, one by one, the scissors, cotton, and other articles in Jane's work-box. She was not of good temper.
"Well, it's a bother! I can't think what right aunts have to domineer over folks! And I must be off to keep shop, or I shall have mother about me. Father's got one of his liver bouts, and is lying abed till dinner-time."
"I wish you'd bring me a pound of wool from Stilborough, Susan? You know where I buy it."
"Let's have the number, then."
Jane gave her a skein of the size and colour wanted, and the money for the purchase. "I'll come down for it this evening," she said. "You'll be back then."
"All right. Good-bye, Jane."
"Good-bye," returned Jane. And as the damsel's fleet steps betook her down the cliff, Jane bolted the door again, put the cambric handkerchief aside, and took the private work out of her pocket.
Meanwhile Miss Hallet had reached the village. Not very speedily. When she went out--which was but seldom--she liked to take her leisure over it. She turned aside to Tim Gleeson's cottage, to inquire after Polly; she halted at the door of two or three more poor fishermen's huts to give the good morrow, or ask after the little ones. Miss Hallet's face was cold, her manner harsh: but she could feel for the troubles of the world, and she gave what help she could to the poor folks around her.
The old woman from whom she bought her eggs, lived in a small cottage past the Dolphin Inn. Miss Hallet got her basket filled--she and Jane often had eggs and bread and butter for dinner to save cooking--paid, and talked a bit with the woman. In returning, Mrs. Bent was at the inn door, in her chintz gown and cherry cap ribbons.
"Is it you, Miss Hallet! How are you this morning?"
"Quite well, thank you," replied Miss Hallet in her prim way.
"Been getting some eggs, I see," ran on Mrs. Bent, unceremoniously. "It's not oftenyoucome down to do your own errands. Where's Jane?"
"I left her at work," was the answer. "Jane does not get through her sewing as quickly as she might, and I have been telling her of it."
"You can't put old heads upon young shoulders," cried Mrs. Bent. "Girls like to be idle; and that's the truth. What do you suppose I caught that Molly of mine at, last night? Stuck down at the kitchen table, writing a love-letter."
Miss Hallet had her eyes bent on her eggs, as though she were counting them.
"Writing a letter, if you'll believe me! And, a fine thing of a letter it was! Smudged with ink and the writing like nothing on earth but spiders' legs in a fit. I ordered it put on the fire. She's not going to waste her time in scribbling to sweethearts while she stays with me."
"Did she rebel?" quickly asked Miss Hallet.
"Rebel! Molly! I should like to see her attempt it. She was just as sheepish as a calf at being found out, and sent the paper into the fire quicker than I could order it in."
Gossip about Mrs. Bent's Molly, or any other Molly, was never satisfactory to Miss Hallet. She broke the subject by inquiring after John Bent's health, preparatory to pursuing her way.
"Oh, he's well enough," was Mrs. Bent's answer. "It's not often men get anything the matter with them. If they were possessed of as much common sense as they are of health, I'd say it was a blessing. That weak-souled husband of mine, seeing Molly piping and sniffing last night, told me privately that he saw no harm in love-letters. He'd see no harm in a score of donkeys prancing over his young plants and other garden stuff next, leave him alone."
"I am glad Mr. Bent is well," said Miss Hallet, taking a step onwards. "Jane told me last week he was ill."
"He had a bilious attack. Jane came in the same night and saw him with his head on a cushion. By the way--look here, Miss Hallet--talking about Jane--I'd not let her be out quite so much after dark, if I were you."
No words could have been more unwelcome to Miss Hallet than these. She was a very proud woman, never brooking advice of any kind. In her heart she regarded Jane as being so infinitely superior to all Greylands, the Greylands' Rest family and the doctor's excepted, that any reproach cast on her seemed nothing less than a presumption. It might please herself to reflect upon her niece for gadding about, but it did not please her that others should.
"Young girls like their fling; I know that," went on Mrs. Bent, who never stayed her tongue for anybody. "To coop 'em up in a pen, like a parcel of old hens, doesn't do. But there's reason in all things: and it seems to me that Jane's out night after night.'
"My niece comes down the cliff for a run at dusk, when it is too dark for her to see to sew," stiffly responded Miss Hallet. "I have yet to learn, Mrs. Bent, what harm the run can do to her or to you."
"None to me, for certain; I hope none to her. I see her in Mr. Harry Castlemaine's company a little oftener than I should choose a girl of mine to be in it. I do not say it is for any harm; don't take up that notion, Miss Hallet; but Mr. Harry's not the right sort of man, being a gentleman, for Jane to make a companion of."
"And who says Jane does make him her companion?"
"I do. She is with him more than's suitable. And--look here, Miss Hallet, if I'm saying this to you, it is with a good motive and because I have a true regard for Jane, so I hope you will take it in the friendly spirit it's meant. If they walked together by daylight, I'd not think so much of it, though in my opinion that would not be the proper thing, considering the difference between them, who he is and who she is: but it is not by daylight, it is after dark."
Miss Hallet felt a sudden chill--as though somebody were pouring cold water down her back. But she was bitterly resentful, and very hard of belief. Mrs. Bent saw the proud lines of the cold face.
"Look here, Miss Hallet. I don't say there's any harm come of it, or likely to come: if I'd thought that, I'd have told you before. Girls are more heedless than the wind, and when they are as pretty as Jane is young men like to talk to them. Mr. Harry is in and about the village at night--he often says to me how dull his own home is--and he and Jane chance to meet somewhere or other, and they talk and laugh together, roaming about while they do it. That's the worst of it, I hope: but it is not a prudent thing for Jane to do."
"Jane stays down here with her friends; she is never at a loss for companions," resentfully spoke Miss Hallet. "She sits with old Goody Dance: and she is a good deal with Miss Nettleby and with Pike's daughter; sometimes staying in one place, sometimes in another. Why, one evening last week--Thursday was it? yes, Thursday--she said she was here, helping you."
"So she was here. We had a party in the best room that night. Jane ran in; and, seeing how busy I was, she helped me to wash up the glass: she's always good-natured and ready to forward a body. She stayed here till half-past eight o'clock."
Miss Hallet's face looked doubly grim. It was nearer half-past ten than half-past eight when Miss Jane made her appearance at home--as she well remembered.
"And now don't you go blowing up Jane through what I've said," enjoined Mrs. Bent. "We were young ourselves once, and liked our liberty. She's thoughtless; that's all; if she were a few years older, she would have the sense to know that folks might get talking about her. Just give her a caution, Miss Hallet: and remind her that Mr. Harry Castlemaine is just about as far above her and us, as the moon's higher than that old weather-cock a-top of the Nunnery."
Miss Hallet went homewards with her eggs. She had perfect confidence in Jane, in her conduct and principles. Jane, as she believed, would never make a habit of walking with Mr. Harry Castlemaine, or he with her: they had both too much common sense. Unless--and a flush illumined Miss Hallet's face at the sudden thought--unless they had fallen into some foolish, fancied love affair with one another.
"Such things have happened before now, of course," reasoned Miss Hallet to herself as she began her ascent of the cliff but her tone was dubious, almost as though she would have liked to be able to tell herself that they never had happened. "But they would know better; both of them; remembering that nothing could come of it. As to the walking together--I believe that's three parts Mrs. Bent's imagination. It is notlikelyto be true. Good morning, Darke!"
A fisherman in a red cap, jolting down the cliff, had saluted Miss Hallet in passing. She went on with her thoughts.
"Suppose I watch Jane a bit? There's nothing I should so much hate as to speak to her upon a topic such as this, and then find I had spoken without cause. It would be derogatory to her and to me. Yes," added Miss Hallet with decision, "that will be the best plan. The next time Jane goes out at dusk, I'll follow her."
The next time happened to be that same evening. Miss Hallet gave not a word of scolding to Jane all day: and the latter kept diligently to her work at Mrs. Castlemaine's handkerchief. At dusk Jane put her warm dark cloak on, and the soft quilted bonnet.
"Where are you going to-night?" questioned Miss Hallet then, with a stress of emphasis on the to-night.
"Just down the cliff, aunt. I want to get the wool Susan Pike was to buy for me at Stilborough."
"Always an excuse for gadding out!" exclaimed Miss Hallet.
"Well, aunt, I must have the wool. I may be wanting it to-morrow."
"You'll toast me two thin bits of toast before you go," said the aunt snappishly.
Jane put off her cloak and proceeded to cut the slices of bread and toast them. But the fire was very low, and they took some considerable time to brown properly.
"Do you wish the toast buttered, aunt?"
"No. Cut it in strips. And now go and draw me my ale."
"It is early for supper, aunt."
"You do as you are bid, Jane. If I feel cold, I suppose I am at liberty to drink my ale a trifle earlier than usual, to warm me."
Jane drew the ale in a china mug that held exactly half-a-pint, and brought it in. It was Miss Hallet's evening allowance: one she never exceeded. Her supper frequently consisted of what she was about to take now: the strips of toast soaked in the ale, and eaten. It was much favoured by elderly people in those days, and was called Toast-and-ale.
Jane resumed her cloak, and was allowed to depart without farther hindrance. But during the detention, the dusk of the evening had become nearly dark. Perhaps Miss Hallet had intended this.
She ate a small portion of the toast very quickly, drank some of the ale, leaving the rest for her return, and had her own bonnet and dark shawl on in no time. Then, locking her house door for safety, she followed in the wake of Jane.
She saw Jane before she reached the foot of the cliff: for the latter's light steps had been detained by encountering Tim and Nancy Gleeson, who could not be immediately got rid of. Miss Hallet halted as a matter of precaution: it would not answer to overtake her. Jane went onwards, and darted across the road to Pike's shop. Miss Hallet stood in a shady angle underneath the cliff, and waited.
Waited for a good half hour. At the end of that time Jane came out again, a paper parcel in her hand. "The wool," thought Miss Hallet, moving her feet about, for they were getting cramped. "Andnowwhere's she going? On to the beach, I shouldn't wonder!"
Not to the beach. Jane came back by the side of the shops, the butcher's and the baker's and the little humble draper's, and turned the corner that led to the Grey Nunnery. Miss Hallet cautiously crossed the road to follow her. When Miss Hallet had her in view again, Jane had halted, and seemed to be doing something to her cloak. The aunt managed to make out that Jane was drawing its hood over her quilted bonnet, so as to shade her face. With the loose cloak hiding her figure, and the hood the best part of her face, Jane's worst enemy would not have known her speedily.
Away she sped again with a swift foot; not running, but walking lightly and quickly. The stars were very bright: night reigned. Miss Hallet, spare of form, could walk almost as quickly as Jane and she kept her in view. Onwards, past the gate of the Nunnery, went Jane to the exceeding surprise of Miss Hallet. What could her business be, in that lonely road?--a road that she herself, who had more than double the years and courage of Jane, would not have especially chosen as a promenade at night. Could Jane be going dancing up to the coastguard station, to inquire after Henry Mann's sick wife? What simpletons young girls were! They had no sense at all: and thought no more of appearances than----
A shrill noise, right over Miss Hallet's head, cut her reflections suddenly short, and sent her with a start against the Nunnery palings. It was a bird flying across, from seaward, which had chosen to make known his presence. The incident did not divert her attention from the pursuit for more than an instant: but in that instant she lost sight of Jane.
What an extraordinary thing! Where was she? How had she vanished? Miss Hallet strained her eyes as she asked the questions. When the bird suddenly diverted her attention, Jane had nearly gained the gate that led into the chapel ruins; might perhaps have been quite abreast of it. That Jane would not go inthere, Miss Hallet felt quite convinced of; nobody would go in. She had not crossed the road to Chapel Lane or Miss Hallet could not have failed to see her cross it: it was equally certain that she was not anywhere in the road now.
Miss Hallet turned herself about like a bewildered woman. It was an occurrence so strangely mysterious as to savour of unreality. The highway had no trap-doors in it: Jane could not have been caught up into the air.
Miss Hallet walked slowly onwards, marvelling, and gazing about in all directions. When opposite the chapel gate, she took courage to look through the palings at that ghost-reputed place: but all there seemed lonely and silent as the grave. She raised her voice in call--just as John Bent had once raised his voice in the silent night after the ill-fated Anthony Castlemaine.
"Jane! Jane Hallet!"
"What on earthcanhave become of her?" debated Miss Hallet, as no response was made to the call. "Shecan'thave gone up Chapel Lane!"
With a view to see (in spite of her conviction) whether Jane was in the lane, Miss Hallet betook herself to cross over towards it. She went slowly; glancing around and about her; and had got to the middle of the road when a faint light appeared in one of the windows of the Friar's Keep. Miss Hallet had heard that this same kind of faint light generally heralded the apparition of the Grey Monk; and she stood transfixed with horror.
Sure enough! A moment later, and the figure in his grey cowl and habit glided slowly past the window, lamp in hand. The unhappy lady gave one terror-stricken, piercing scream, and dropped down flat in the dusty highway.
The kitchen at the Grey Nunnery was flagged with slate-coloured stone. A spacious apartment: though, it must be confessed, very barely furnished. A dresser, with its shelves, holding plates and dishes; a few pots and pans; some wooden chairs; and a large deal table in the centre of the room, were the principal features that caught the eye.
The time was evening. Three of the Sisters were ironing. Or, to be quite correct, two of them were ironing, and the other, Sister Ann, was attending to the irons at the fire, and to the horse full of fresh ironed clothes, that stood near it. The fire threw its ruddy glow around: upon the plates, of the old common willow pattern, ranged on the dresser-shelves, on the tin dish-covers, hanging against the wall, on the ironing blanket, spread on the large table. One candle only was on the board, for the Sisters were economical, and moreover possessed good eyesight; it was but a common dip in an upright iron candlestick, and required to be snuffed often. Each of the two Sisters, standing side by side, had her ironing stand on her right hand, down on which she clapped the iron continually. They wore their muslin caps, and had on ample brown-holland aprons that completely shielded their grey gowns, with over-sleeves of the same material that reached up nearly to the elbow.
The Sisters were enjoying a little friendly dispute: for such things (and sometimes not altogether friendly) will take place in the best regulated communities. Some pea-soup, that had formed a portion of the dinner that day, was not good: each of the three Sisters held her own opinion as to the cause of its defects.
"I tell you it was the fault of the peas," said Sister Caroline, who was cook that week and had made the soup. "You can't make good soup with bad peas. It's not the first time they have sent us bad peas from that place."
"There's nothing the matter with the peas," dissented fat little Sister Phoeby, who had to stand in her pattens to obtain proper command of the board whenever it was her turn to iron. "I know peas when I look at them, I hope, and I say these are good."
"Why, they would not boil at all," retorted Sister Caroline.
"That's because you did not soak them long enough."
"Soaking or not soaking does not seem to make much difference," said the aspersed Sister, shaking out a muslin kerchief violently before spreading it on the blanket. "The last time it was my week for cooking we had pea-soup twice. I soaked the peas for four-and-twenty hours; and yet the soup was grumbled at! Give me a fresh iron, please, Sister Ann."
Sister Ann, in taking one of the irons from between the bars of the grate, let it fall with a crash on the purgatory. It made a fine clatter, and both the ironers looked round. Sister Ann picked it up; rubbed it on the ironing cloth to see that it was the right heat, put it on Sister Caroline's stand, and took away the cool one.
"The fact is this," she said, putting the latter to the fire, "you can't make pea-soup, Sister Caroline. Now, it's of no use to fly out: youcan't. You don't go the right way to make it. You just put on the liquor that the beef or pork has been boiled in, or from bones stewed down, as may be, and you boil the peas in that, and serve it up as pea-soup. Fine soup it is! No flavour, no goodness, no anything. The stock is good enough: we can't afford better; and nobody need have better: but if you want your pea-soup to be nice, you must stew plenty of vegetables in it--carrots especially, and the outside leaves of celery. That gives it a delicious flavour: and you need not use half the quantity of peas if you pass the pulp of the vegetables with them through the calender."
"Oh, yes!" returned Sister Caroline in a sarcastic tone. "Yourpea-soup is always good: we all know that!"
"And so it is good," was easy-tempered Sister Ann's cheery answer: and she knew that she spoke the truth. "The soup I make is not a tasteless stodge that you may almost cut with the spoon, as the soup was to-day; but a delicious, palatable soup that anybody may enjoy, fit for the company-table of the Master of Greylands. Just look how your candle wants snuffing!"
Sister Caroline snuffed the candle with a fling, and put down the snuffers. She did not like to be found fault with. Sister Phoeby, who wanted a fresh iron, went clanking to the fire in her pattens, and got it for herself, leaving her own in the bars. Sister Ann was busy just then, turning the clothes on the horse.
"What I should do with that cold pea-soup is this--for I'm sure it can never be eaten as it is," suggested Sister Ann to the cook. "You've got the liquor from that boiled knuckle of ham in the larder; put it on early to-morrow with plenty of water and fresh vegetables; half an hour before dinner strain the vegetables off, and turn the pea-soup into it. It will thin it by the one half, and make it palatable."
"What's the time?" demanded Sister Caroline, making no answering comment to the advice. "Does anybody know?"
"It must have struck half-past eight."
"Was not Sister Margaret to have some arrowroot taken up?"
"Yes, I'll make it," said Sister Ann. "You two keep on, with the ironing."
Sister Margaret was temporarily indisposed; the result, Mr. Parker thought, of a chill; and was confined to her bed. Taking a small saucepan from its place, Sister Ann was reaching in the cupboard for the tin of arrowroot, when a most tremendous ringing came to the house bell. Whether it was one prolonged ring, or a succession of rings, they could not tell; but it never ceased, and it alarmed the Sisters. Cries and shrieks were also heard outside.
"It must be fire!" ejaculated the startled women.
All three rushed out of the kitchen and made for the front door, Sister Phoeby kicking off her pattens that she might ran the quicker. Old Sister Mildred, who had become so much better of late that she was about again just as the other ladies were, appeared at the door of the parlour with Sister Mary Ursula.
"Make haste, children! make haste!" she cried, as the three were fumbling at the entrance-door, and impeding one another; for "The more haste the less speed," as says the old proverb, held good here.
When it was flung open, some prostrate body in a shawl and bonnet was discovered there, uttering cries and dismal moans. The Sisters hastened to raise her, and found it was Miss Hallet. Miss Hallet covered from head to foot in dust. She staggered in, clinging to them all. Jane followed more sedately, but looking white and scared.
"Dear, dear!" exclaimed compassionating Sister Mildred, whose deafness was somewhat better with her improved health, so that she did not always need her new ear-trumpet. "Have you had an accident, Miss Hallet? Pray come into the parlour."
Seated there in Sister Mildred's own easy-chair, her shawl unfastened by sympathising hands, her bonnet removed, Miss. Hallet's gasps culminated in a fit of hysterics. Between her cries she managed to disclose the truth--the Grey Monk had appeared to her.
Some of the Sisters gave a shiver and drew closer together. The Grey Monk again!
"But all the dust that is upon you?" asked Sister Phoeby. "Did the Grey Friar do that?"
In one sense yes, for he had caused it, was the substance of Miss Hallet's answer. The terror he gave her was so great that she had fallen flat down in the dusty road.
In half a minute after Miss Hallet's shriek and fall, as related in the last chapter, Jane had run up to her. The impression upon Miss Hallet's mind was that Jane had come up from behind her, not from before her; but Jane seemed to intimate that she had come back from Chapel Lane; and Miss Hallet's perceptions were not in a state to be trusted just then. "What brings you here, aunt?--what are you doing up here?--what's the matter?" asked Jane, essaying to raise her. "Nay," said Miss Hallet, when she could get some words out for fright, "the question is, what bringsyouhere?" "I," said Jane; "why I was only running to the Hutt, to give Commodore Teague the muffetees I have been knitting for him," and out of Jane's pocket came the said muffetees, of a bright plum-colour, in proof of the assertion; though it might be true or it might not. "Has it gone?" faintly asked Miss Hallet. "Has what gone, aunt?" "The Grey Friar. It appeared to me at that window, and down I fell: my limbs failed me." "There--thereisa faint light," said Jane, looking up for the first time. "Oh, aunt!" Jane's teeth began to chatter. Miss Hallet, in the extreme sense of terror, and not daring to get up, took a roll or two down the hill in the dust: anything to get away from that dreadful Keep. But it bumped and bruised her: she was no longer young; not to speak of the damage to her clothes, of which she was always careful. So with Jane's help she managed to get upon her feet, and reach the Nunnery somehow; where, shrieking in very nervousness, she seized upon the bell, and pulled it incessantly until admitted, as though her arm were worked by steam.
"My legs failed me," gasped Miss Hallet, explaining now to the Sisters: "I dropped like a stone in the road, and rolled there in the dust. It was an awful sight," she added, drawing unconsciously on the terrors of her imagination: "a bluish, greenish kind of light at first; and then a most dreadful, ghostly apparition with a lamp, or soft flame of some kind, in its outstretched arm. I wonder I did not die."
Sister Mildred unlocked a cupboard, and produced a bottle of cordial, a recent present from Mrs. Bent: a little of which she administered to the terrified nervous woman. Miss Hallet swallowed it in gulps. There was no end of confused chattering: a ghost is so exciting a subject to discuss, especially when it has been just seen. Sister Ann compared the present description of the Grey Friar with that which she and Sister Rachel had witnessed, not so long before, and declared the two to tally in every particular. Trembling Sister Judith added her personal testimony. Altogether there had not been so much noise and bustle within the peaceful walls of the Nunnery since that same eventful night, whose doings had been crowned by the arrival of poor little Polly Gleeson with her burns. In the midst of it an idea occurred to Sister Mildred.
"But what brought you up by the Friar's Keep at night, Miss Hallet?" she asked. "It is a lonely road: nobody takes it by choice."
Miss Hallet made no answer. She was gasping again.
"I dare say she was going to see the coastguardsman's wife, sick Emma Mann," spoke Sister Phoeby heartily. "Don't tease her." And Miss Hallet, catching at the suggestion in her extremity, gave Sister Phoeby a nod of acquiescence. It went against the grain to do so, for she was integrity itself, but she would not have these ladies know the truth for the world.
"And Jane had ran on to take the mittens to the Commodore, so that you were alone," said Sister Mildred, following out probabilities in her own mind, and nodding pleasantly to Miss Hallet. "I see. Dear me! What a dreadful thing this apparition is!--what will become of us all? I used not to believe in it much."
"Well, you see people have gone past the Keep at night lately more than they used to: I'm sure one or another seems always to be passing by it," remarked Sister Ann sensibly. "We should hear nothing about it now but for that."
When somewhat recovered, Miss Hallet asked for her bonnet and shawl: which had been taken away to be shaken and brushed. Leaving her thanks with the Sisters, she departed with Jane, and walked home in humility. Now than the actual, present fear had subsided, she felt ashamed of herself for having given way to it, and particularly for having disturbed the Nunnery in the frantic manner described. But hers had been real, genuine terror; and she could no more have helped its laying complete hold of her at the time than she could have taken wings and flown away from the spot, as an arrow flies through the air. A staid, sober-aged, well-reared woman like herself, to have made a commotion as though she had been some poor ignorant fish girl! Miss Hallet walked dumbly along, keeping her diminished head down as she toiled up the cliff.
After supper and prayers were over that night at the Nunnery, and most of the Grey Ladies had retired to their rooms--which they generally did at an early hour when there was nothing, sickness or else, to keep them up--Sisters Mildred and Mary Ursula remained alone in the parlour. That they should be conversing upon what had taken place was only natural. Mary Ursula had not, herself, the slightest faith in the supernatural adjunct of the Grey Friar; who or what it was she knew not, or why it should haunt the place and show itself as it did, lamp in hand; but she believed it would turn out to be a real presence, not a ghostly one. Sister Mildred prudently shook her head at this heterodoxy, confessing that she could not join in it; but she readily agreed that the Friar's Keep was a most mysterious place; and, in the ardour of conversation, she disclosed a secret which very much astonished Mary Ursula. There was an underground passage leading direct from the vaults of the Nunnery to the vaults of the Keep.
"I have known of it for many years," Mildred said, "and never spoken of it to any one. My Sister Mary discovered it: you have heard, I think, that she was one of us in early days: but she died young. After we took possession of this building, Mary, who was lively and active, used to go about, above ground and under it, exploring, as she called it. One day she came upon a secret door below, that disclosed a dark, narrow passage: she penetrated some distance into it, but did not cate to go on alone. At night, when the rest of the ladies had retired, she and I stayed up together--just as you and I have stayed up to-night, my dear, for it was in this very parlour--and she got me to go and explore it with her. We took a lantern to light our steps, and went. The passage was narrow, as I have said, and apparently built in a long straight line, without turnings, angles, or outlets. Not to fatigue you, I will shortly say, that after going a very long way, as it seemed to us, poor timid creatures that we were, we passed through another door, and found ourselves in a pillared place that looked not unlike cloisters, and at length made it out to be vaults under the Friar's Keep."
"What a strange thing!" exclaimed Mary Ursula, speaking into the instrument she had recently made the good Sister a present of--a small ear-trumpet, for they were talking almost in a whisper.
"Not so strange when you remember what the place was originally," dissented Sister Mildred. "Tradition says, you know, that these old religions buildings abounded in secret passages. I did not speak of the discovery, and enjoined silence on Mary; the Sisters might have been uncomfortable; and it was not a nice thing, you see, to let the public know there was a secret passage into our abode."
"Did you never enter it again?"
"Yes, once. Marywouldgo; and of course I could not let her go alone. It was not long before the illness came on that terminated in her death. Ah, my dear, we were young then, and such an expedition bore for us a kind of pleasurable romance."
Mary Ursula sat in thought. "It strikes me as not being a pleasant idea," she said--"the knowledge that we may be invaded at any hour by some ill-disposed or curious straggler, who chooses to frequent the Friar's Keep."
"Not a bit of it, my dear," said Sister Mildred, briskly. "Don't fear. We can go to the Keep at will, but the Keep cannot come to us. The two doors are firmly locked, and I hold the keys."
"I should like to see this passage!" exclaimed Mary Ursula. "Are you--dear Sister Mildred, do you think you are well enough to show it to me?"
"I'll make myself well enough," returned the good-natured lady: "and I think I am really so. My dear, I have always meant from, the time you joined as to tell you of this secret passage: and for two reasons. The one because the Head of our Community ought not to be in ignorance that there is such a place; the other because it was your cousin who recently has disappeared so unaccountably in the Keep--though I suppose the passage could not have had anything to do with that. But for my illness, I should have spoken before. We will go to-night, if you will."
Mary Ursula eagerly embraced the proposal on the spot. Attiring themselves in their warmest grey cloaks, the hoods well muffled about their heads, for Sister Mildred said the passage would strike cold as an ice-house, they descended to the vaults below; the elder lady carrying the keys and Mary Ursula the lighted horn lantern, which had slides to its four sides to make it lighter or darker at will.
"See, here's the door," whispered Sister Mildred, advancing to an obscure corner. "No one would ever find it; unless they had a special talent for exploring as my poor Mary had. Do you see this little nail in the wall? Well the keys were hanging up there: and it was in consequence of the keys catching her eye That Mary looked for the door."
It required the efforts of both ladies to turn the key in the rusty lock. As the small gothic door was pushed open, a rash of cold damp air blew on their faces. The passage was hardly wide enough to admit two abreast; at least without brushing against the walls on either side. The ladies held one another; Mary Ursula keeping a little in advance, her hand stretched upwards with the lantern so that its light might guide their steps.
A very long passage: no diversion in it, no turnings or angles or outlets, as Sister Mildred had described; nothing but the damp and monotonous stone walls on either hand or overhead. While Mary Ursula was wondering whether they were going on for ever, the glimmer of the lantern suddenly played on a gothic door in front, of the same size and shape as the one they had passed through.
"This is the other door, and this is the key," whispered Sister Mildred.
They put it in the lock. It turned with some difficulty and a grating sound, and the door slowly opened towards them. Another minute, and they had passed into the vaults beneath the Friar's Keep.
Very damp and cold and mouldy and unearthly. As far as Mary Ursula could judge, in the dim and confined light emitted by the small lantern, they appeared to be quite like the cloisters above: the same massive upright pillars of division forming arches against the roof, the same damp stone flooring. There was no outlet to be seen in any part; no staircase upwards or downwards. Mary Ursula carried her lantern and waved it about but could find none: none save the door they had come through.
"Is there any outlet to this place, except the passage?" she asked of Sister Mildred.
"Very, my dear; very damp indeed," was the Sister's answer. "I think we had better not stay; I am shivering with the cold air; and there's nothing, as you perceive, to see."
The ear-trumpet had been left behind, and Mary Ursula did not dare raise her voice to a loud key. She was inwardly shivering herself; not with the chilly, mildewy air, but with her own involuntary thoughts. Thoughts that she would have willingly forbidden entrance to, but could not. With these secret vaults and places under the Keep, secret because they were not generally known abroad, what facilities existed for dealing ill with Anthony Castlemaine; for putting him out of sight for ever!
"Can he be concealed here still, alive or dead?" she murmured to herself. "Surely not alive: for how----"
A sound! A sound close at hand. It was on the opposite side of the vault, and was like the striking of some metal against the wall: or it might have been the banging of a door. Instinctively Mary Ursula hid the lantern under her cloak, caught hold of Sister Mildred, and crouched down with her behind the remotest pillar. The Sister had heard nothing, of course; but she comprehended that there was some cause for alarm.
"Oh, my dear, what will become of us!" she breathed. "Whatever is it?"
Mary dared not speak. She put her hand on the Sister's lips to enjoin silence, and kept it there. Sister Mildred had gone down in a most uncomfortable position, one leg bent under her; and but for grasping the pillar for support with both hands she must have tumbled backwards. Mary Ursula, was kneeling in very close contact, which helped to prop the poor lady up behind. As to the pillar, it was nothing like wide enough to conceal them both had the place been light.
But it was pitch dark. A darkness that might almost be felt. In the midst of it; in the midst of their painful suspense, not knowing what to expect or fear, there arose a faint, distant glimmering of light over in the direction where Mary had heard the sound. A minute afterwards some indistinct, shadowy form appeared, dressed in a monk's habit and cowl. It was the apparition of the Grey Friar.
A low, unearthly moan broke from Sister Mildred. Mary Ursula, herself faint with terror, as must be confessed, but keenly alive to the necessity for their keeping still and silent, pressed the Sister's mouth more closely, and strove to reassure her by clasping her waist with the other hand. The figure, holding its lamp before it, glided swiftly across the vault amid the pillars, and vanished.
It all seemed to pass in a single moment. The unfortunate ladies--"distilled almost to jelly with the effect of fear," as Horatio says--cowered together, not knowing what was next to happen to them, or what other sight might appear. Sister Mildred went into an ague-fit.
Nothing more came; neither sight nor sound. The vaulted cloisters remained silent and inky-dark. Presently Mary Ursula ventured to show her light cautiously to guide their footsteps to the door, towards which she supported Sister Mildred: who once in the passage and the door locked behind her, gave vent to her suppressed terror in low cries and moans and groans. The light of the lantern, thrown on her face, showed it to be as damp as the wall on either side her, and ghastly white. Thus they trod the passage back to their own domains, Sister Mildred requiring substantial help.
"Take the keys," she said to Mary Ursula, when they were once more in the warm and lighted parlour, safe and sound, save for the fright. "They belong to your custody of right now; and I'm sure a saint out of heaven would never induce me to use them again. I'd rather have seen a corpse walk about in its grave-clothes."
"But, dear Sister Mildred--it was very terrifying, I admit; but it could not have been supernatural. There cannot be such things as ghosts."
"My child, we saw it," was the all-convincing answer "Perhaps if they were to get a parson into the place and let him say some prayers, the poor wandering spirit might be laid to rest."
That there was something strangely unaccountable connected with the Friar's Keep and some strange mystery attaching to it, Mary Ursula felt to her heart's core. She carried the two keys to her chamber, and locked them up in a place of safety. Her room adjoined Sister Mildred's; and she stood for some time looking out to sea before undressing. Partly to recover her equanimity; which had unquestionably been considerably shaken during the expedition; partly to indulge her thoughts and fancies, there she stood. An idea of the possibility of Anthony Castlemaine's being alive still, and kept a prisoner in some of these vaults underneath the Keep, had dawned upon her. That there were other and more secret vaults besides these cloisters they had seen, was more than probable: vaults in which men might be secretly confined for a lifetime--ay, and no doubt had been in the old days; confined until claimed by a lingering death. She did not think it likely that Anthony was there, alive: the conviction, that he was dead, had lain upon her from the first; it was upon her still: but the other idea had crept in and was making itself just sufficiently heard to render her uncomfortable.
Her chamber was rather a nice one and much larger than Sister Mildred's. Certain articles suggestive of comfort, that had belonged to her room at Stilborough, had been placed in it: a light sofa and sofa table; a pretty stand for books; a handsome reading lamp; a small cabinet with glass doors, within which were deposited some cherished ornaments and mementoes that it would have given her pain to part with; and such like. If Miss Castlemaine had renounced the world, she had not renounced some of its little vanities, its home-refinements neither did the Community she had joined require anything of the kind to be done. The window, with its most beautiful view of the sea, was kept free; curtains and draperies had been put up, no less for warmth than look: on one side it stood the cabinet, on the other the dressing-table and glass; the bed and the articles of furniture pertaining to it, drawers, washhand-stand, and such like, occupied the other end of the room. It was, in fact, a sitting-room and bedroom combined. And there, at its window, stood Mary Ursula, shivering almost as much as she had shivered in the cloisters, and full of inward discomfort.
In the course of the following morning, she was sitting with sick Sister Margaret, when word came to her that a gentleman had called. Proceeding to the reception parlour, she found the faithful old friend and clerk, Thomas Hill. He was much altered, that good old man: the unhappy death of his master and the anxiety connected with the bank affairs had told upon him perhaps also the cessation from the close routine of daily business was bearing for him its almost inevitable effect: at least, when Mary Ursula tenderly asked what it was that ailed him, he answered, Weariness, induced by having nothing to do. The tears rushed to his eyes when he inquired after her life--whether it satisfied her, whether she was not already sick to death of it, whether repentance for the step had yet set in. And Mary assured him that the contrary was the fact; that she was getting to like the seclusion better day by day.
"Can you have comforts here, my dear Miss Mary?" he inquired, not at all satisfied.
"Oh, yes, any that I please," she replied. "You should see my room above, dear old friend: it is nearly as luxurious and quite as comfortable as my chamber was at home."
"Will they let you have a fire in it, Miss Mary?"
She laughed; partly at the thought, partly to reassure him. "Of course I could if I wished for it; but the weather is coming in warm now. Sister Mildred has had a fire in her room all the winter. I am head of all, you know, and can order what I please."
"And you'll not forget, Miss Mary, that what I have is yours," he returned in a low, eager tone. "Draw upon it when you like: be sure to take care of your comforts. I should like to leave you a cheque-book: I have brought it over with its cheques signed----"
She stopped him with hasty, loving words of thanks. Assuring him that her income was enough, and more than enough, for everything she could possibly want, whether individually or for her share in the expenses of the Community. Thomas Hill, much disappointed, returned the new cheque-book to his pocket again.
"I wish to ask you one question," she resumed, after a pause, and in a tone as low as his own. "Can you tell me how the estate of Greylands' Rest was left by my grandfather?"
"No, I cannot, Miss Mary; I have never known. Your father did not know."
"My father did not know?" she said in some surprise.
"He did not. On the very last day of his life, when he was just as ill as he could be, my dear good master, he spoke of it to me: it was while he was giving me a message to deliver to his nephew, the young man Anthony, Mr. Basil's son. He said that he had never cared to inquire the particulars, and fully believed that it became James's by legal right; he felt sure that had it been left to Basil, James would not have retained possession. Miss Mary, I say the same."
"And--what is your opinion as to what became of Anthony?" she continued after a short pause.
"I think, my dear, that young Mr. Anthony must somehow have fallen into the sea. He'd not be the first man, poor fellow, by a good many, who has met with death through taking an uncertain step in the deceptive moonlight."
Mary Ursula said no more. This was but conjecture, just as all the rest of it had been.
When the visit was over, she put on her bonnet to stroll out with him. He had walked from Stilborough, intending to dine at the Dolphin, and go back afterwards at his leisure. Mary went with him on the beach, and then parted with him at the door of the inn.
"You are sure you are tolerably happy, my dear?" he urged, as though needing to be assured of it again and again, holding both her hands in his. "Ah, my dear young lady, it is all very well for you to say you are; but I cannot get reconciled to it. I wish you could have found your happiness in a different sphere."
She knew what he meant--found it as William Blake-Gordon's wife--and something like a faintness stole over her spirit.
"Circumstances worked against it," she meekly breathed. "I am content to believe that the life I have embraced is the best for me; the one appointed by God."
How little did she think that almost close upon that minute, she should encounterhim--her whilom lover! Not feeling inclined to return at once to the Nunnery, and knowing that there was yet a small space of time before dinner, she continued her way alone up the secluded road towards the church. When just abreast of the sacred edifice a lady and gentleman approached on horseback, having apparently ridden from Stilborough. She recognized them too late to turn or retreat: it was William Blake-Gordon and Miss Mountsorrel.
Miss Mountsorrel checked her horse impulsively; he could but do the same. The young lady spoke.
"Mary! is it you? How strange that we should meet you! I thought you never came beyond the convent walls."
"Did you? I go out where and when I please. Are you well, Agatha?"
"Areyouwell?--that is the chief question," returned Miss Mountsorrel, with a great deal of concern and sympathy in her tone. "You do not look so."
Just then Mary undoubtedly did not. Emotion had turned her as pale as death. Happening to catch sight of the countenance of Mr. Blake-Gordon, she saw that his face was, if possible, whiter than her own. A strangely yearning, imploring look went out to her from his eyes--but what it meant, she knew not.
"I shall come and see you some day, Mary, if I may," said Miss Mountsorrel.
"Certainly you may."
They prepared to ride on: Mr. Blake-Gordon's horse was restive. The young ladies wished each other good morning he bowed and lifted his hat. He had not spoken a word to her, or she to him. They had simply stood there face to face, he on horseback, she on foot, with the tale-telling emotion welling up from their hearts.
Mary opened the churchyard gate, went in, and sat down under a remote tree near the tomb of the Castlemaines, hiding her face in her hands. She felt sick and faint; and trembled as the young green leaves about her were trembling in the gentle wind. So! this was the manner of their meeting again: when he was riding by the side of another!
The noise of horses, passing by, caused her to raise her head and glance to the road again. Young Mountsorrel was riding swiftly past to catch his sister, having apparently lingered temporarily behind: and the groom clattered closely after him at a sharp trot.