A bright and cheery morning with a soft westerly breeze. The flowing sea sparkled in the sunlight; the little boats danced upon its waves; the birds on the land sang merry songs to one another, cheated into a belief that spring had come in.
There had been commotion in the streets of Stilborough on the previous day, and especially around the banker's door, as we have already seen; but that commotion was open and above board, as compared with the stir that was this morning agitating Greylands. For, report was running wildly about that some mysterious and unaccountable disaster had happened to Anthony Castlemaine.
Anthony Castlemaine had disappeared. There was no other word, save that, applicable to the event: he haddisappeared. And as Greylands had taken a warm fancy to the young man, it rose up in great agitation. Almost with morning light the village was being searched for him and inquiry made. People turned out of their cottages, fishermen left their boats, some of the Grey Sisters even came forth from the Nunnery: all eagerly asking what and how much was true.
The originator of the rumour was John Bent. He did not seem to know a great deal more than other people; but nobody, save him, knew anything at all. The Dolphin Inn was besieged; work was at a standstill; Mrs. Bent allowed even her servant, Molly, to stand listening, with her arms akimbo, unreproved.
The story told by John Bent was a curious one. And, it should be intimated, that, but for the fears stirring within the landlord's own breast, the disappearance would not have been thought so much of at this early stage. But John Bent had caught up the fear that some fatal harm had chanced to the young man in fact, that he had been murdered! The landlord could not account for this strong impression; he acknowledged that: but it was there, and he freely spoke it out. The substance of the tale he told was as follows.
After Anthony Castlemaine had darted across the road and through the gate in the wake of his uncle the Master of Greylands, as previously related, John Bent stood still, watching for a minute or two, but could not see or hear anything of either of them. He then, finding the night air somewhat cold, stamped up and down the path, not losing sight of the opposite gate, and waiting for Anthony to come out of it. Close upon this there rang out the report of a pistol. It was accompanied, almost simultaneously, by an awful cry; the cry of a man in agony. John Bent wondered where the cry came from and what it meant, but he never thought to connect either cry or pistol with Anthony Castlemaine. The time passed: John Bent began to find this waiting wearisome; he thought what a long confab his guest was enjoying with Mr. Castlemaine, and hoped they were settling matters amicably: and he wondered somewhat at their remaining in that dark, ghostly Keep, instead of choosing the open moonlight. By-and-by a sailor staggered past--for he had been taking more grog than was good for him--towards his home in the village. He was smoking; and John Bent took his own pipe from his pocket, filled it, and lighted it by the sailor's. The pipe consoled John Bent, and the minutes passed somewhat less tediously: but when one o'clock rang out and there were no signs of the young man, he began to think it very strange. "Surely they'd not stay all this while in that haunted Friar's Keep!--and not a place to sit down on, and nothing but cold pillared cloisters to walk or stand in, andthemdark!" cried John to himself--and he deliberated what he should do. The prospect of marching into the Friar's Keep in search of his guest was not altogether congenial to his taste, for John Bent did not like the chance of meeting ghosts more than Greylands did: neither did he care to proceed home himself and leave Anthony Castlemaine to follow at leisure. Another quarter of an hour elapsed; and then--finding there was no help for it and quite tired out--he put on a bold spirit, and crossed over to enter the gate. But the gate was locked.
The gate was locked. And, had John Bent seen the whole row of high, substantial palings suddenly lifted into the air, or thrown down to the earth, he would not have stood more transfixed with astonishment.
For that gate had never been known to be locked, within his remembrance. There certainly was a lock to it, but it had always lacked a key. The latch was good, and that was all the fastening used, or needed. John Bent stood with open mouth, gasping out his surprise to the air.
"What on earth does this mean?"
He shook the gate. At least, he would have shaken it, had it been less substantially firm: but it scarcely moved under his hand. And then he set on and shouted at the top of his voice, hoping his guest would hear.
"Mr. Anthony Castlemaine! Shall you be much longer, Mr. Anthony Castlemaine?"
The light breeze took his voice over the chapel ruins and carried its echoes out to sea; but there came back no answer of any kind.
"Well, this is a rum go," cried John, looking up, and down, and round about, in his bewilderment. "Surely Mr. Anthony can't have come out and gone home!" he added, the unlikely notion flashing on him; for, when thoroughly puzzled we are all apt to catch at straws of improbability. "Hecouldn'thave come out without my seeing him, and me never beyond view of the gate: unless it was in the minute that I was lighting my pipe by Jack Tuff's, when I had my back turned. But yet--how was it Mr. Anthony did not see me?"
Unable to solve these doubts, but still thinking that was how it must have been, the landlord went home with a rapid step. Before he gained it, he had quite made his mind up that it was so; he fully believed his guest was by this time sound asleep in his bed, and called himself a donkey for waiting out all that while. John Bent put his hand on the handle of his door to enter softly, and found it fastened. Fastened just as firmly as the gate had been.
"Where's Ned, I wonder?" he cried aloud, alluding to his man; and he knocked with his hand pretty sharply.
There was no more response to this knock than there had been to the shouts he had been lately sending forth. He knocked again and shook the door. The moonbeams still played upon the sea; a white sail or two of the night fishing boats gleamed out; he put his back against the door and gazed on the scene while he waited. No good, as he knew, to go round to the front entrance; that was sure to be closed. John knocked the third time.
The window above his head was flung open at this juncture, and Mrs. Bent's nightcapped head came out.
"Oh, it's you, is it!" she tartly cried. "I thought, for my part, you had taken up your abode in the road for the night."
"Ned's sitting up, I suppose, Dorothy. Why does he not open the door?"
"Ned will not open the door till he has my orders. There! A pretty decent thing, this is, for a respectable householder of your age to come home between one and two in the morning! If you are so fond of prancing up and down the road in the moonlight, filling a fresh pipe at every trick and turn, why don't you stay there till the house is opened to-morrow?"
"Jack Tuff must have told you that!"
"Yes, Jack Tuff did tell it me," retorted Mrs. Bent. "I stayed at the door looking for you till half after twelve. And a tidy statehewas in!" added the good lady in additional wrath. "His nose touching the ground, a'most every step he took!"
"Just let me come in, Dorothy. I've not stayed out all this while for pleasure--as you may be sure."
"You've stayed for aggravation perhaps; to keep people up. Where's Mr. Anthony Castlemaine?"
"He's come home, isn't he?"
"I dare say you know very well whether he is or not!" returned Mrs. Bent from her window.
"But Dorothy, woman, it is for him I've been waiting. He went into the Friar's Keep, and he's never come out again--unless he came when I did not see him."
"The Friar's Keep!" repeated the landlady, in the most mocking tone she could use. "What excuse will you invent next?"
"It's no excuse: it's true. We saw Mr. Castlemaine go in there, and Mr. Anthony ran over and followed him, saying he'd have out the quarrel under the moonlight. And I stood cooling my heels outside, waiting for him all that while; till at last I began to think he must have come out and passed me unseen. Hehascome home, has he not?"
"He isnotcome home," said Mrs. Bent.
"Well, let the door be opened."
As the story sounded a mysterious one, and Mrs. Bent had her curiosity, and as her husband moreover was a staid man, not at all given to this kind of offence in general, she allowed him to come in, herself opening the door. He gave her a summary of the story, she wrapped in a warm shawl while she stood to listen to it and to make her comments. Anthony Castlemaine had not come home; she had seen nothing at all of him; or of anybody else, tipsy Jack Tuff excepted.
A kind of scared feeling, a presentiment of evil, crept over John Bent. For the first time, he began to wonder whether the pistol-shot he had heard had struck the young man, whether the agonised cry was his. He went into Anthony's bedroom, and saw with his own eyes that it was empty. It was not that he questioned his wife's word; but he felt confused and doubtful altogether--as though it were not possible that Anthony could be absent in this unaccountable manner.
"I must go back and look for him, Dorothy woman."
"You'll take the key with you, then," said Mrs. Bent; who, for a wonder, did not oppose the proposition: in fact, she thought it right that he should go. And back went John Bent to the Friar's Keep.
He did not at all like this solitary walking, lovely though the night was; he would rather have been asleep in bed. The Grey Nunnery lay steeped in silence and gloom; not a single light shone from any of its windows; a sure sign that just now there could be no sick inmates there. John Bent reached the gate again, and the first thing he did was to try it.
It yielded instantly. It opened at his touch. And the man stood not much less amazed than he had before been to find it fastened. At that moment the sound of approaching footsteps in the road struck on his ear; he turned swiftly, his heart beating with eager hope: for he thought they might prove to be the steps of Anthony Castlemaine.
But they were those of Mr. Nettleby. The officer was returning from his mission of night supervision, whatever it might especially be. John Bent met him, and told his tale.
"Nonsense!" cried the superintendent, after he had listened. "They would not be likely to stay in those deserted cloisters of the Friar's Keep. Are you sure it wasMr. Castlemaineyou saw go in?"
"Quite sure. But I can't think what he could want there."
"You don't think you were dreaming?" asked Mr. Nettleby, who by this time evidently fancied the tale was altogether more like a dream than a reality. "I don't believe the gate has a key, or that it ever had one."
He was examining the gate as he spoke. The lock was there as usual; but of any sign that a key had been in it that night there was none. Crossing the ruins, they stood looking out over the sea; at the line of glittering moonlight, at the distant boats catching their fish. From that they went into the Friar's Keep. Its moss-eaten Gothic door lay open to the chapel ruins. Pillars of stone supported the floor--the floor which the spirit of the dead-and-gone Grey Friar was supposed to haunt. It was rather a ghostly-looking place altogether; the intersecting pillars and the arches above, and some open arches facing the sea, where a little light streamed through. They could not see the sea from this place, for the outer wall was nearly as high as they were; but not so high as the arches; and the light and the salt fresh smell of the sea came wafting in. There they stood on the stone floor of those cloisters--as people had fallen into the way of calling them--and shouted out the name of Anthony Castlemaine. Neither sight nor sound came back in answer: all was quiet and lonely as the grave; there was not the slightest sign that any one had been there.
"If theydidcome in here, as you say," observed Mr. Nettleby, with that same ring of disbelief in his voice, "I'll tell you what it is, Bent. They must have come out again at once, and gone home together to Greylands' Rest."
This view of the case had not presented itself to the mind of John Bent. He revolved it for an instant, and then saw that it was the most feasible solution of the problem. But he did not feel quite satisfied; for it was difficult to fancy Anthony Castlemaine would so go off without telling him. Still he accepted it; and he and the officer quitted the Keep, and turned their steps homeward. In his own mind the superintendent fully believed John Bent had been asleep and dreaming; it was so impossible to fancy any sane man promenading in the chapel ruins or the Keep at night. And the Master of Greylands, of all people!
"Did you get upon the trail of any smugglers at Beeton asked John Bent.
"No," said Mr. Nettleby, rather savagely, for he had had his night's work for nothing. "Couldn't see any traces of them. I do suspect that Beeton, though. I believe it contains a nest of the lawless wretches!"
He turned in at his own gate as he spoke. The landlord went on and was speedily at home again. Anthony Castlemaine had not come in.
Before eight o'clock in the morning, John Bent, feeling doubtful and uneasy, went up to Greylands' Rest. He noticed that all the blinds were down, and some of the shutters closed. Miles, the servant man, was outside the back-entrance door, shaking mats.
"I thought none of you could be up yet," began the landlord, "with all the blinds down! I'm sure the house looks as though somebody had died in it."
"And somebody has died, more's the pity; though not in the house," replied Miles, turning his face, full of grave concern, on the speaker. "A messenger was here soon after six this morning to fetch the master to Stilborough. Mr. Peter Castlemaine died suddenly last night."
The landlord was shocked. He could hardly believe it. "Mr. Peter Castlemaine dead!" he exclaimed. "It can't be true, Miles."
"It's too true," returned Miles.
"But he was so strong and healthy! He had not a trace of illness about him!"
"Ay. But they say it was the heart."
"Well, it's sad news any way, and I'm sorry for him," said John Bent. "Is young Mr. Castlemaine here?"
"Not just now. He'll be home some time this afternoon. He went off to Newerton yesterday on business."
"I don't mean him--Mr. Harry. I mean Mr. Anthony Castlemaine."
"What should bring that young man here?" loftily retorted Miles, who made a point of sharing in all the prejudices of his master.
John Bent told his tale. It was listened to with disbelieving and resentful ears.
"My master in at that there blessed scared place, the Friar's Keep, at twelve o'clock at night! Well, I wonder what next you'll say, Mr. Bent?"
"But I saw him go in," returned John Bent.
"It couldn't have been him. It's not likely. What should he want there? When us servants went to bed at ten, the master was in the red parlour. As to that other young man you speak of, that he has not been anigh the houseIcan answer for."
John Bent felt as if he were in the midst of a fog, through which no light could be seen. "You say Mr. Castlemaine is at Stilborough, Miles?"
"He went off there soon after six o'clock. And wasn't he cut up when he heard the news about his brother!" added Miles. "His lips and face had no more red in them thanthat"--pointing to a snowdrop under the wall. "He looked just like a man who had got a shock."
It was of no use for John Bent to linger. Anthony Castlemaine was not to be heard of at Greylands' Rest. He took his departure; and, in the absence of any other clue to follow, went making inquiries in the village. Before long, not a single inhabitant, from one end of it to the other, but had heard and was making comments on his tale.
The Dolphin Inn was a crowded place that day, and its landlord the centre of attraction. People were in and out incessantly, listening to the singular history. Numbers flocked to the Friar's Keep, and to every other spot in Greylands likely or unlikely for a man to be hidden in, dead or living; but there was no trace anywhere of the presence of Anthony Castlemaine. Setting aside the disappearance, the tale itself excited wonder; and that part of it relating to the entrance into the chapel ruins of Mr. Castlemaine, and the subsequent sound of a shot and cry, and of the locked gate, was received by some with incredulity. Opinions were hazarded that the landlord's eyes might have deceived him, his ears and his fingers played him false; that Mr. Castlemaine must have been altogether a myth; the supposed locked gate been only his awkwardness, and the shot and cry nothing but the scream of a sea bird. In this one latter point, however, John Bent's account was established by other testimony, coming, singular to say, from the Grey Ladies. It appeared that Sister Mildred was very ill that night, and two of the others sat up with her, Sisters Mona and Ann. The room of the Superioress faced the sea, and was the last room at the end next the chapel ruins. As the Sisters sat there watching in the stillness of the night, they were suddenly startled by the sound of a shot, and by a scream as from some one wounded. So, in regard to the truth of this part of John Bent's account, there could no longer be a doubt.
In the afternoon Mr. Castlemaine returned from Stilborough. The commotion Greylands was in rendered it impossible for him to remain long ignorant of what had taken place, and of the manner in which his name was mixed up with it. Being a man of quick perception, of penetrating judgment, he could not fail to see that some suspicion must attach to himself in the public mind; that the alleged story, taken in conjunction with previous facts: the pretentions of his nephew to Greylands' Rest, and their hostile meeting in the fields earlier in the day: must inevitably excite doubt and comment. Proud, haughty, and self-contained though the Master of Greylands was, this matter was of too grave a nature, and might bring too many unpleasant consequences in its train, for him to ignore it. He deemed it well to throw himself forthwith into the battle; and he went out to the Dolphin. On his way he encountered Commodore Teague. The latter had been at sea since early morning in his cutter--as he was apt to call that sailing boat of his--and had but now, on landing, had his ears assailed with the story. A few exchanged sentences between Mr. Castlemaine and the Commodore, and they parted; Mr. Castlemaine proceeding to the inn.
"Whatisthis absurd story?" he demanded of John Bent, lifting his hat as he entered the best kitchen to the knot of people assembled there. "I cannot make head or tail of it."
For the fiftieth time at least, the landlord recounted the history. It was listened to with breathless interest, even by those who had done nothing but listen to it for many previous hours.
"And do you expect sensible people to believe this, John Bent?" were the first answering words of the Master of Greylands.
"It's true, whether they believe it or not," said John. "It was yourself, sir, was it not, that we saw pass through the gate into the chapel ruins?"
"I!" scornfully repeated Mr. Castlemaine. "What do you suppose should take me to such a place as that, at midnight? If all your points are as correct as that, Mr. Bent, your story will not hold much water."
"I said it was not likely to be Mr. Castlemaine," spoke up the superintendent of the coastguard. "I told Mr. Bent so at the time."
"I put it to you all, generally, whether itwaslikely," pursued Mr. Castlemaine, glancing defiantly about him.
"All I can say is this," said John Bent: "that if it was not Mr. Castlemaine, my eyes must have strangely deceived me, and young Mr. Anthony's must have deceived him. Why, the night was as light as day."
"Eyes do deceive sometimes," remarked Mr. Castlemaine. "I know that mine have on occasion deceived me at night, good though their sight is. And of all deceptive lights, the moon's light is the worst."
"Sir, if it was not you it must have been your wraith," said John Bent, evidently not inclined to give in. "You passed close by us sideways, coming out of the Chapel Lane, and crossed the road in front of us. Had you just turned your head sharp to the right, you must have seen us under the hedge."
"Was it the Grey Friar, think you?" asked Mr. Castlemaine. And John Bent did not like the bantering tone, or the suppressed laugh that went around.
"That some one crossed from the Chapel Lane may be true: for I do not see how you could purely imagine it," conceded Mr. Castlemaine, after a pause. "But it was not I. Neither can I understand nor conceive what anybody should want in the chapel ruins at that time of night. We are most of us rather given to shun the place."
"True, true," murmured the room.
"And the locked gate," proceeded Mr. Castlemaine, "how do you account for that? Where did the key come from to lock it? According to what you say, John Bent, it would appear that Mr. Anthony Castlemaine must have locked it; since you maintain that no one went in or came out subsequently to himself. If he locked it, he must have unlocked it. At least, that is the inference naturally to be drawn."
"I say that the gate never was locked," put in Superintendent Nettleby. "The latch might have caught at the minute, and caused Mr. Bent to fancy it was locked."
"You may as well tell me I don't know when a place is open and when it's shut," retorted John Bent.
"And the pistol, again!--or gun?" remonstrated Mr. Castlemaine. "It does not stand to reason that people should be firing off guns and pistols at midnight. I fancy that must be altogether a mistake----"
"The Grey Ladies can speak to that much, sir," interrupted Mrs. Bent. "As Sister Ann, here, can tell you."
Mr. Castlemaine turned on his heel and brought his eyes to bear on Sister Ann. She was sitting in the corner near the clock, her basket as usual in her hand. For she had come out to do errands, and been seduced by curiosity into the Dolphin, to take her share in the gossip.
"Yes, sir, we heard the pistol, or gun, whichever it was, and the human cry that came with it," she said to Mr. Castlemaine. "Sister Mona and I were watching in Sister Mildred's room--for the fever was very bad upon her last night, and she was restless and wandering, poor lady! It was all quite still. I was knitting and Sister Mona was reading; you might have heard a pin drop indoors or out; when there burst upon our ears a loud shot, followed by a human cry. A thrilling scream, it was, making me and sister Mona start up in terror."
"It was like a death scream," said John Bent. "And I cannot," he added, looking at Mr. Castlemaine, "get it out of my head that it was his scream--young Mr. Anthony's."
"From what direction did it come?" asked Mr. Castlemaine of the landlord.
"I can't tell, sir. I was walking about on the opposite side of the road, and at first I thought it came from seaward; but it sounded very near."
"It sounded to us as though it came from the chapel rains, or from the strip of beach below it," said Sister Aim. "We did not hear anything more."
"And I did not think at the time to connect that shot and scream with Mr. Anthony Castlemaine," pursued John Bent. "It never came anigh my mind to do it, never. It do now."
"Well, it is altogether a most extraordinary and unaccountable affair," remarked Mr. Castlemaine. "Strange to say, I was abroad last night myself and near the spot, but not as late as you describe this to have been. Between ten and eleven I went down the lane as far as the Hutt. Teague was, I had heard, purposing to go out in his boat for a few hours to-day; and I, not having been very well, lately, thought I should like to go with him, and went down to say so. I stayed and had a pipe with him, and I think it must have been half-past eleven when I left."
"And did you go straight home from the Hutt, sir?" asked John Bent, eagerly.
"I went straight home from the Hutt's door to my door," emphatically replied Mr. Castlemaine.
"And did not go anigh the other end of the lane at all?--nor the Friar's Keep?"
"Certainly not. I tell you I went straight home. I went direct from Teague's house to mine."
That Mr. Castlemaine was candid in stating this matter spontaneously, when he might have concealed it, his hearers mentally saw, and it told in his favour. But it did not lessen the perplexity, or the mist that the affair was shrouded in. He turned to depart.
"I shall at once institute a thorough search; and, if necessary, summon the law to my aid," said he. "Not that I fear any real harm has befallen my nephew Anthony; but it will be satisfactory to ascertain where he is. I fancy he must have gone off somewhere, perhaps on some sudden and uncontemplated impulse. It may be, that he is given to take these impromptu flights; as was his father before him, my brother Basil."
Mr. Castlemaine passed out as he spoke, with a bend of the head to the company. He was looking pale and ill; they could but notice it throughout the entire interview; and his face had a worn, sad cast of sorrow on it, never before seen there.
"He has brought that look back from Stilborough," remarked John Bent. "There are bad fears, it's whispered, about his brother's death: we have not got the particulars yet. But as to Mr. Anthony's having walked off in any promiscuous manner, it's the silliest thought that ever was spoken."
Commodore Teague, in his blue sailor's costume, came looming in, his hands in his pockets. He had made haste down from the Hutt (having been obliged to go there on landing, to carry his gun and sundry other articles from his boat, and to light his fires) to hear the details of the mysterious story or, as he chose to express it, the wrongs and the rights on't.
So John Bent once more recounted the particulars, assisted by the tongues of all the company--for they did not stand in awe of this listener as they did of Mr. Castlemaine. The Commodore listened with incredulity: not to say ridicule.
"Look here, John Bent, you may tell that tale to the marines. I can explain away some of it myself. Bless my heart! To think you folk should be running your head again all them marvels, when there's none to run 'em against. That gun that went off was mine," concluded the Commodore; who liked to put on a free-and-easy grammar when in familiar intercourse with Greylands, though he could be a gentleman when with such people as the Castlemaines.
"Your gun!"
"It was. And as to Mr. Castlemaine, you no more saw him go into the Friar's Keep than you saw me go. Last night, I was smoking my pipe and cleaning my gun--for I meant to shoot a few birds out at sea to-day--when who should come knocking at the Hutt door but Mr. Castlemaine. He'd been feeling out of sorts, he said, and thought a sail would do him good, and would like to go with me to-day--for it seems the whole parish had heard I was going. With all my heart, I answered; I'd be proud of his company. He sat down and took a pipe; smoking's contagious, you know: and we talked about this and that. When he left I saw him to the door, and watched him turn up the lane towards his house. It don't stand to reason he'd come down again."
"He told us all this himself, Commodore."
"Did he!--what, Mr. Castlemaine? Well, it's true. After he was gone, I got to my gun again, which I had laid aside when he entered. It struck twelve before I finished it. After that, I loaded it, took it to the door, and fired it off into the air. That was the shot you heard, landlord."
"And the cry?"
"Never was any cry to hear. 'Twas fancy. I made none, and I know I heard none."
"What time was it when your gun went off?"
"Past twelve; I don't rightly know how much. I went to bed and to sleep without looking at the clock. This morning word was brought me that Mr. Castlemaine had been fetched to Stilborough; and I took out Ben Little in the boat instead."
But this explanation did not go for so much as it might have done. The Commodore was in the habit of telling the most incredible sea yarns; and faith, in that respect, was wanting in him. Moreover, the strong impression on John Bent's mind was, that it was a pistol-shot he had heard, not a gun. Above all, there remained the one broad fact of the disappearance: Anthony Castlemaine had been alive and well and amidst them the previous night, and to-day he was not. Altogether the commotion, the dread, and the sense of some mysterious evil increased: and lying upon many a heart, more or less, was a suspicion of the part played in it by Mr. Castlemaine.
Dusk was approaching when a horseman rode past the Dolphin: Mr. Harry Castlemaine on his return from Newerton. Seeing what looked like an unusual bustle round the inn doors, he pulled up. Molly ran out.
"What's agate?" asked Mr. Harry. "You seem to have got all the world and his wife here."
"It's feared as it's murder, sir," returned simple Molly.
"Murder!"
"Well, sir, Mr. Anthony Castlemaine went into the Friar's Keep last night, and have never come out again. It's thought he was shot there. A dreadful cry was heard."
"Shot! Who shot him?"
"'Tain't known, sir. Some says it was Mr. Castlemaine that was in there along of him."
Harry Castlemaine drew up his haughty head; a dark frown knitted his brow. But that she was a woman, ignorant and stupid, and evidently unconscious of all the word's might imply, he might have struck her as she stood.
"And there's dreadful news in from Stilborough, Mr. Harry, sir," resumed the girl. "Mr. Peter Castlemaine was found dead in his chamber last night."
"What?" shouted Harry, thinking she must be playing upon him with all these horrors.
"It's true, sir. The Master of Greylands have not long got back from seeing him. He died quite sudden, poor gentleman, shut up in his room, and not a soul anigh him to watch his last breath."
It was almost too much. His uncle dead, his cousin disappeared, his father suspected he knew not yet of what. Never a more cruel moment, than that had dawned for Harry Castlemaine.
Evils do not always come alone. It sometimes happens that before one astounding ill is barely glanced at, another has fallen. This was the case at Stilborough.
The town awoke one morning to find that the bank had stopped payment, and that the banker was dead. Never before in the memory of man had the like consternation been known. It can be better imagined than written. At once the worst was anticipated. No one had ever been so confided in as was Mr. Peter Castlemaine. His capacity for business, his honour and integrity, his immense wealth, had passed into a proverb. People not only trusted him, but forced upon him that trust. Many and many a man had placed in his hands all they possessed: the savings perhaps of half a lifetime; and now they saw themselves ruined and undone.
Never had the like excitement been known in the quiet town; never so much talking and gesticulating; metaphorically speaking, so much sighing and sobbing. And indeed it is to be doubted if this last was all metaphor. Thomas Hill had never been so sought after; so questioned and worried; so raved at and abused as now. All he could implore of them was to have a little patience until accounts could be gone into. Things might not, he represented, turn out as badly as people supposed. Nobody listened to him; and he felt that if all days were to be as this day, he should soon follow his master to the grave. Indeed, it seemed to him now, in the shock of this dreadful blow--his master's ruin and his master's untimely end--that his own existence henceforth would be little better than a death in life.
In the very midst of the commotion, there was brought to Stilborough news of that other calamity--the mysterious disappearance of young Anthony Castlemaine. He had been seen to enter the Friar's Keep the previous night, and had never come out again. The name of the Master of Greylands appeared to be mixed up in the affair; but in what manner was not yet understood. Verily misfortunes seemed to be falling heavily just now upon the Castlemaines.
This last event, however, after exciting due comment and wonder, was lost sight of in the other evil: for the first nearly concerned the interests of Stilborough, and the latter did not concern them at all. Their ruin, their ruin! That was the all-absorbing topic in the minds of the bewildered citizens.
In inquiry into the death of Peter Castlemaine ended in a decision that he had died from heart disease. This was arrived at chiefly by the testimony and the urgent representation of Thomas Hill. One of the medical men was supposed to hold a contrary opinion; and the dreadful doubt, previously spoken of, would always lie on Miss Castlemaine's mind; but the other was the accepted view. He was buried in the neighbouring churchyard, St. Mark's: Parson Marston, who had so often and so recently sat at his dinner-table, performing the service.
Gradually the first excitement diminished. Brains and tempers calmed down. For, added to that natural depression that succeeds to undue emotion, there arose a report that things would be well, after all, and everybody paid to the full.
In fact, it was so. The money that had been so long waited for--the speculation that had at last turned up trumps--was pouring in its returns. And there arose another source of means to be added to it.
One morning the great Nyndyll Mine Company, that had been looked upon as being as good as dead, took a turn for the better; received, so to say, a new lease of life. A fresh vein of surprising richness and unbounded extent, had been struck: the smallest shareholder might immediately reckon that his fortune was an accomplished fact: and those lucky enough to be largely interested might cease speculation for ever, and pass the time in building themselves castles and palaces--with more solid foundations than the air will furnish--to live in. The shares went up in the market like rockets: everyone was securing them as eagerly as we should pick up diamonds if we got the chance. In a very short time, the shares held by the house of Mr. Peter Castlemaine might have been resold for fifteen times the original amount paid for them.
"Is this true, Hill?" asked Mr. Castlemaine, who had come bounding over on horseback from Greylands' Rest at the first rumour of the news, and found the old clerk at his post as usual, before the private desk that had been his master's. "Can it be true?" repeated Mr. Castlemaine.
He was changed since his brother's death. That death, or something else, had told upon him strangely. He and Peter had been fond of each other. James had been proud of his brother's position in the country; his influence and good name. The shock had come upon him unexpectedly, as upon every one else: and, in a manner, affected him far more. Then, his interests were largely bound up with those of his brother; and though if he had lost all he had lent him he would still be a rich man, yet the thought was not to be indulged with indifference or contemplated pleasantly. But to do him justice, these considerations sank into insignificance, before the solemn fact of his brother's death, and the mystery and uncertainty enshrouding it.
"Is it true, Hill?" he reiterated before the clerk had time to speak. "Or is it all as a miserable delusion of Satan."
"It is true enough, sir," answered Thomas Hill. "The shares have gone suddenly up like nothing I ever knew. Alas, that it should be so!"
"Alas!" echoed Mr. Castlemaine. "What mean you, Hill? has trouble turned your brain?"
"I was thinking of my poor dear master," said the old man. "It was this very mine that helped to kill him. You see now, Mr. Castlemaine, how good his speculations were, how sound his judgment! Had he lived to see this turn of affairs, all would have been well."
"Too late to speak of that," said Mr. Castlemaine, with a deep sigh. "He is dead; and we must now give our attention to the living. This slice of luck will enable you to pay all demands. The shares must be realized at once.
"Enable us to pay every one, as I believe," assented Thomas Hill. "And otherwise we should not."
"What a strange chance it seems to be!" musingly observed Mr. Castlemaine. "A chance that rarely occurs in life. Well, as I say, it must be seized upon."
"And without delay, sir. The shares that have gone up so unexpectedly, may fall as suddenly. I'll write to-day." Mr. Castlemaine rose to depart. The clerk, who was settling to his papers, again looked off to ask a question.
"Have any tidings turned up, sir, of poor Mr. Anthony?"
"Not that I have heard of. Good-day, Hill."
The expected money was realized; other expected money was realized; and in an incredibly short space of time, for poor Thomas Hill worked with a will, the affairs of the bank were in a way of settlement, every creditor to be fully satisfied, and the late unfortunate banker's name to be saved. Anything that had been underhanded in his dealing, Thomas Hill and Mr. Castlemaine had contrived to keep from the public.
But one creditor, whose name did not appear on the books, and who had put in no demand to be satisfied, was passed over in silence. Mary Ursula's fortune had been hopelessly sacrificed; and it was already known that little, if anything, would be left for her. She knew how and why her fortune had gone: Mr. Hill had explained it all to her; it had helped to save her father's honour and good name; and had it been ten times the amount, she would freely have given it for such a purpose, and been thankful that she had it to give.
Seeing what it had done, she did not as far as she herself was concerned, look upon it with one moment's regret. True she was now poor; very poor compared with the past: she would have at most but about a hundred and fifty pounds a year; but she was in too much trouble to think much of money now. One heavy weight had been lifted--the sickening dread that the creditors would lose part or all. On that one point she was now at rest. But there were other things. There was the underlying current of fear that her father had not died of heart disease; there was the mysterious perplexity attending the disappearance of her cousin Anthony; and there was her own engagement to Mr. Blake-Gordon.
Her position was now so different from what it had been when he proposed to her, and the severity, the pride, the arrogance of Sir Richard so indisputable, that she feared the worst. Moreover, she knew, from the present conduct of both father and son, that she had cause to fear it.
Twice, and twice only, had William Blake-Gordon come to her since her father's death, and he might so easily have come to her every day in her desolation! Each time he had been kind and loving as ever; not a suspicion, not a hint of separation had appeared in look or tone; but in his manner there had been something never seen before: a reticence; a keeping back, as it were, of words that ought to come out: and instinct told her that all was not as it used to be.
"How does your father take the news?--What does he say to it, and to my loss of fortune?--Is he still willing to receive me?" she had asked on each occasion; and as often he had contrived to put aside the questions without satisfactory answer.
Days went on; her position, as to lack of fortune, was known abroad; and the suspense she endured was making her ill. One morning at the breakfast table, as she finished reading some letters that had been delivered for her, Mrs. Webb, who had scanned the letters outside from the opposite side of the table, put a question that she often did put.
"Is any one of them from Mr. Blake-Gordon, my dear?"
"No," replied Mary. And no one but herself knew what it cost her to have to say it; or how trying to her was the usual silence that followed the answer.
"I will end the suspense," she said to herself, shutting herself in her own sitting-room when the meal was over. "It is Sir Richard, I know; not William: but at least they shall not find me willing to enter the family on bare sufferance. I will give them the opportunity of retiring from the engagement--if that be what they wish for."
Drawing her desk towards her, she paused with the pen in her hand, deliberating how to write. Whether in a cold formal strain, or affectionately and confidently as of yore: and she decided on the latter.
"My Dearest William,
"My circumstances have so changed since the early days of our engagement, that I feel I am now, in writing to you, adopting the only course left open to me, both in fairness to you and for the sake of my own future happiness and peace of mind.
"When you proposed to me and I accepted you, I was in a very different position from that of to-day. Then I was supposed to be--nay, I supposed myself--a very rich woman. I was the daughter of a man beloved, honoured, and respected; a member of a house which, if not equal to your own in the past annals of the country, might at least mix with it on equality and hold its own amongst gentlemen. All this is now changed. My dear father is no more, my large fortune is gone, and I am left with next to nothing.
"That you have asked me to become your wife for myself alone, I feel sure of. I am certain that no thought of riches influenced you in your choice: that you would take me now as willingly as in the old days. But instinct--or presentiment tells me that others will step in to interfere between us, and to enjoin a separation. Should this be the case--should your father's consent, once given, now be withdrawn--then all must be at an end between us, and I will restore you your liberty. Without the fall approval of Sir Richard, you cannot attempt to marry me; neither should I, without it, consent to become your wife.
"If, on the other hand, that approval is still held out to us both as freely as of yore, I have only to add what you know so well--that I am yours, now as ever.
"Mary Ursula Castlemaine."
The letter written, she hesitated no longer about the necessity or wisdom of the step. Sealing it, she despatched it by a trusty messenger to Sir Richard's house just beyond the town.
The news of the failure of the bank and death of its master, had reached Sir Richard Blake-Gordon when he was at a dinner party. It fell upon him with startling effect. For a moment he felt half paralyzed: and then the blood once more took its free course through his veins as he remembered that his son's marriage was yet a thing of the future.
"Never," he said to himself with energy. "Never, as long as I live. I may have a battle with William; but I could always twist him round my fingers. In that respect he is his poor mother all over. No such weakness about me. Failed for millions! Good heavens, what an escape! We shall be quite justified in breaking with the daughter; and she and William have both sense enough to see it."
He was not of those who put off disagreeable things until they will be put off no longer. That very night, meeting his son when he got home, he began, after expressing regret for the banker's sudden death.
"A sad affair about the bank! Who would have expected it?"
"Who, indeed!" returned William Blake-Gordon. "Everyone thought the bank as safe as the Bank of England. Safer, if anything."
"It only shows how subject, more or less, all private concerns are to fluctuations--changes--failures--and what not," continued Sir Richard.
"Whatever this may be--failure or not--it will at least be open and straightforward," said William. "Mr. Peter Castlemaine was the soul of honour. The embarrassments must have arisen from other quarters, and Thomas Hill says the trouble and anxiety have killed him."
"Poor man! People are expecting it to be an awful failure. Not five shillings in the pound for the creditors, and all the Castlemaine family ruined. This must terminate your engagement."
The sudden mandate fell on the young man's ears with a shock. He thought at the first moment his father must be jesting.
"It must terminate my engagement?" he retorted, catching sight of the dark stern countenance. "What, give up Mary Castlemaine? Never, father! Never will I do it so long as I shall live."
"Yes, you will," said Sir Richard, quietly. "I cannot allow you to sacrifice your prospects in life."
"To give her up would be to sacrifice all the prospects I care for."
"Tush, William!"
"Think what it is you would advise, sir!" spoke the son with ill-suppressed emotion. "Putting aside my own feelings, think of the dishonour to my name! I should be shunned by all good and true men; I should shun myself. Why, I would not live through such dishonour."
Sir Richard took a pinch of snuff.
"These misfortunes only render it the more urgent for me to carry out the engagement, sir. Is it possible that you do not see it? Mary Castlemaine's happiness is, I believe, bound up in me; and mine, I freely avow it, is in hers. Surely, father, you would not part us!"
"Listen, William," spoke Sir Richard, in the calm, stern tones he could assume at will, more telling, more penetrating than the loudest passion. "Should Miss Castlemaine become portionless--as I believe it will turn out she has become--you cannot marry her. Or, if you do, it would be with my curse. I would not advise you, for your own sake, to invoke that. You can look elsewhere for a wife: there are numbers of young women as eligible as ever was Miss Castlemaine."
Long they talked together, far on into the night, the stern tones on the one hand becoming persuasive ones; the opposition sinking into silence. When they separated, Sir Richard felt that he had three parts gained his point.
"It is all right," said he mentally, as he stalked up to bed with his candle. "William was always ultra dutiful."
Sir Richard interdicted his son's visits to Miss Castlemaine; and the one or two scant calls the young man made on her, were made in disobedience. But this state of things could not last. William Blake-Gordon, with his yielding nature, had ever possessed a rather exaggerated idea of the duty a son owes his father: moreover, he knew instinctively that Mary would never consent to marry in opposition to Sir Richard, even though he brought himself to do it.
It soon became known abroad that Miss Castlemaine's fortune had certainly been sacrificed. Sir Richard was cold and distant to his son, the young man miserable.
One day the baronet returned to the charge; intending his mandate to be final. They were in the library. William's attitude was one of utter dejection as he leaned against the side of the window, looking forth on the spring sunshine: sunshine that brought no gladness for him. He saw too clearly what the end would be: that his own weakness, or his sense of filial duty, call it which you may, must give way before the stronger will, the commanding nature.
"Your conduct is now simply cruel to Miss Castlemaine," Sir Richard was saying. "You are keeping her all this time in suspense. Or, perhaps--worse still--allowing her to cherish the hope that her altered circumstances will not cause the engagement to terminate."
"I can't help it," replied William. "The engagement has no business to terminate. It was sacredly entered into: and, without adequate reason, it ought to be as sacredly kept."
"You are a living representation of folly," cried Sir Richard. "Adequate reason! There's reason enough for breaking off fifty engagements. Can you not see the matter in its proper light?"
"That is what I do see," replied William, sadly. "I see that the engagement ought to be maintained. For my own part, I never can go to Mary and tell her that I am to give her up."
"Coward," said Sir Richard, with a great frown. "Then I must."
"I fear you are right," returned William: "a coward I am, little better. It is a cowardly thing to break off this alliance--the world will call it by a very different name. Father," he added, appealingly, "is my happiness nothing to you? Can you sacrifice us both to your pride and vainglory."
"You will see it very differently some day," returned Sir Richard. "When you have lived in the world as long as I have, you will laugh at yourself for these ridiculously romantic ideas. Instead of marring your happiness, I am making it. Substantially, too."
"I think, sir," said Mr. Blake-Gordon, not liking the tone, "that you might leave me to be the judge of what is best for my own happiness."
"There you are mistaken, my dear William. You have but a young head on your shoulders: you see things de tort et de travers, as the French have it. The engagement with Peter Castlemaine's daughter would never have received my sanction but for her great wealth. We are poor, and it is essential that you should marry a large fortune if you marry at all. That wealth of hers has now melted, and consequently the contract is at an end. This is the common-sense view of the circumstances which the world will take. Done, it must be, William. Shall I see the young lady for you? or will you be a man and see her for yourself?"
But before Mr. Blake-Gordon had time to reply, a note was brought in. It was the one written by Miss Castlemaine; and it could not have arrived more seasonably for Sir Richard's views. The young man opened it; read it to the end: and passed it to his father in silence.
"A very sensible girl, upon my word," exclaimed Sir Richard, when he had mastered the contents by the aid of a double eye-glass. "She sees things in their right light. Castlemaine was, after all, an extremely honourable man, and put proper notions into her. This greatly facilitates matters, William. Our path is now quite smoothed out for us. I will myself write to her. You can do the same, if you are so disposed. Had this only come before, what arguments it might have saved!"
Upon which the baronet sat down, and indited the following epistle:--
"My dear young Lady,
"Your note--which my son has handed to me--has given me in one sense a degree of pleasure; for I perceive in it traces of good sense and judgment, such as women do not always possess.
"You are right in supposing that under the present aspect of affairs a marriage between yourself and Mr. Blake-Gordon would be unadvisable." (She had supposed nothing of the sort, but it suited him to assume it.) "And therefore I concur with you in your opinion that the engagement should terminate.
"Deeply though I regret this personally, I have yet felt it my duty to insist upon it to my son: not only for his sake, but for your own. The very small means I am able to spare to him render it impossible for him to take a portionless wife, and I could never sanction a step that would drag him down to poverty and embarrassment. I was about to write to you, or to see you, to tell you this, for William shrank from the task, and your note has agreeably simplified what had to be done. We cordially, though reluctantly, agree to what you have had the good feeling to propose.
"At all times I shall be delighted to hear of your welfare and happiness; and, believe me, my dear Miss Castlemaine, you have not a more sincere well-wisher than your devoted friend and servant,
""Richard Blake-Gordon."