"Now, mademoiselle, je n'eh veux pas."
"Because Ethel understands French as well as you do, that's no reason why I should. If you tell me in French what I have to do, of course I can't do it, for I don't know a word you say."
It was the first morning of the studies, Tuesday, Madame Guise having entered the previous day. She, Ethel, and Flora were seated round the table in the schoolroom, a small apartment looking to the kitchen-garden, with an old carpet on its floor, painted segged chairs, and a square piano against the wall opposite the fire. Ethel was copying music. Madame Guise was endeavouring to ascertain the advancement of Miss Flora in her studies, with a view to arranging their course in future, speaking in French, and requiring the replies to be in French. But the young lady obstinately persisted in making them in English.
"Whatever you do, Madame Guise, please speakalwaysto Flora in French," had been Mrs. Castlemaine's first charge to the new governess. "Above all things, I wish her to be a good French scholar, and to speak it as fluently as Miss Reene does." But here, at the very outset, Miss Flora was demurring to the French, and protesting she could not understand it.
Madame Guise hesitated. She did not choose to be met by wilful disobedience; on the other hand, to issue her mandates in an unknown language would be simply waste of time. She turned her eyes questioningly on Ethel. "I am not quite sure, madame, one way or the other," said Ethel, replying in French. "Flora ought to be able to understand it; and to speak it a little too; but she has always been inattentive. Miss Oldham and the governesses who preceded her did not speak French as you do: perhaps they were not particular that Flora should speak it."
"How is it that you speak it so well?" asked Madame.
"I? Oh, I had a French nurse when I was a child, and then a French governess; and to finish my education I went to Paris for two years."
"All the three governesses I have had here did not speak French to me," interrupted Flora, resentfully. "Not one of them."
"Have you had three governesses? That is a great many, considering you are yet young," observed Madame, in English.
"They were all bad ones," said the girl.
"Or was it that you were a bad pupil You must be a better one with me."
Ethers shapely head, with its bright dark hair, was bent over her copying again: she said nothing. Madame Guise determined to speak in English to the child for at least this morning, until the studies should be put in train.
"We will begin with your English grammar"--taking up the dog-eared, untidy book. "How far have you advanced in it, Miss Flora?"
"I don't like grammar."
"How far have you advanced in it?" equably pursued Madame.
"I don't recollect."
"To begin English grammar again," spoke Madame, addressing herself, and making a note on paper with a pencil.
"I shan't begin it again."
"You will not say to me I shall or I shan't; you will do what I please," quietly corrected Madame. "This is your English History. What reign are you in?"
Miss Flora had her elbows on the table, her hands under her chin, and her pretty face pushed out defiantly opposite Madame. The patches of plaster were nearly all gone; her light curls tied back with a black ribbon, hang low behind. She wore a black frock and white pinafore.
"Which of the king's reigns are you in?" pursued Madame.
"Not in any. I know them all. Charles the Second was beheaded; and Henry the Eighth had ten wives: and Guy Faux blew up the gunpowder plot; and Elizabeth boxed people's ears."
"Oh," said Madame, "I think we shall have to beginthatagain. Are you good at spelling?"
"I can't spell at all. I hate it. Mamma says I need not learn to spell."
"I fancy that cannot be true. How will you write letters if you cannot spell?"
"Who wants to write letters?--I don't."
"Flora!" put in Ethel in a warning tone.
The girl turned angrily on Ethel. "Nobody askedyouto speak: mind your copying."
"Mind your manners, said Ethel nodding to her.
"Not for you, or for anybody else in this room."
"It is very unpleasant to hear young ladies say these rude things," interposed Madame. "As your governess, Miss Flora, I shall not permit it."
"That's what my other governesses would say," retorted Flora. "It made no difference to me."
"If the other governesses did not do their duty by you, it is no reason why I should not do mine," said Madame. "Your papa has charged me with forming your manners; if I have trouble in doing it I am to appeal to him."
Flora was silent. The one only authority she feared, in the house or out of it, was her father's.Hewould not be trifled with, however her mother might be.
"I hate governesses, Madame Guise. I'd like to know what they were invented for?"
"To teach ignorant and refractory children to become good young ladies," spoke Madame, who did not seem in the least to lose her temper. Flora did not like the calmness: it augured badly for the future. It was so totally unlike her experience of former governesses.Theywere either driven wild, or had subsided into a state of apathy.
"I drove those other governesses away, and I'll drive you. I'll never do anything you tell me. I won't learn and I won't practise."
"The less you learn, the more persistently I will stay on to make you," said Madame, quite unruffled. "A lesson that you do not get by heart to-day, you will have to get to-morrow: the studies broken off this week, must be completed next. As to your trying to drive me away, it will be labour lost; I simply tell you I am not to be driven. If there is anything I like, and for which I think I have an especial fitness, it is the ruling of refractory children. We shall see which will be strongest, Miss Flora, you or I."
"Once, when one of my governesses wanted tomakeme learn, I had a fever. Mamma said it was all her fault."
"Very good," said Madame. "We will risk the fever. If you get one I will nurse you through it. I am a capital nurse."
Ethel burst out laughing. "The fever was a headache, Flora; you brought it on with crying."
"You ugly story-teller! I did have a fever. I lay in bed and had broth."
"Yes, for a day. Why, you have never had a fever in your life. Mr. Parker saw you and brought some medicine; you would not take it and got up."
"Ugh! you old tell-tale!"
"Come to my side, Miss Flora," spoke Madame. "You will stand here and read a little of French and of English that I may see how you read. And I must tell you that if we have not got through this morning what we want to get through and put the studies en train, I shall not allow you to go out this afternoon, and I shall request that you have no dinner. Instead of that, you will stay in this room with me. Mind! I never break my word."
After a few moments' delay, the young lady moved round. Probably she saw that her new mistress wasnotone to break her word. And, thus, a beginning made, the morning wore away rather better than its commencement had promised. Never was there a child with better abilities than Flora Castlemaine: it was only the will to use them that was lacking. She had been brought up to exercise her own will and disobey that of others. Bad training! bad training for a child.
Putting aside the difficulties attending the instruction and management of Miss Flora, Madame Guise found the residence at Greylands' Rest not at all an unpleasant one. The routine of the day was this. Breakfast--which meal was taken all together in the red parlour--at eight o'clock. Flora until dinner-time; half-past one. Ethel's music lesson of an hour, was given during the afternoon: Flora being generally out with her mamma or racing about the premises and grounds on her own account. Tea at five; one hour given to Flora afterwards, to help her to prepare her lessons or exercises for the following day: and then Madame's duties were over.
Little did Mr. Castlemaine imagine that the pleasant, though always sad young lady, who was so efficient an instructress for the young plague of the house, was his ill-fated nephew's widow. He was somewhat taken aback when he heard that Madame Guise had placed her child at the Grey Nunnery, and knitted his brow in displeasure. However, the child's being there, so long as the ladies were, could make no difference to him; it was the Sisterhood he wanted away, not the child.
Charlotte Guise never went out during the day--except on Sundays to church. Ethel would try to coax her abroad in the afternoons, but hitherto she had not succeeded. In the evening, after Flora was done with, Madame would put her bonnet on and stroll alone: sometimes to the Nunnery to see her child, whose enforced absence only made her the dearer to her mother's heart.
"Why will you not go out with me?" asked Ethel one afternoon, when she and Madame Guise rose from the piano in the red parlour--for the old square piano in the schoolroom was for the benefit of the unskilled fingers of Miss Flora only. "See how pleasant everything looks! It is quite spring weather now."
"Yes, it is spring weather, but I feel a little cold always, and I don't care to go," answered Madame Guise. "I will go when summer comes."
They sat down before the French window, Ethel opening it to the pleasant air. Madame Guise had been wishing ever since she was in the house to put a question to this fair young girl, whom she had already learned to love. But she had not yet dared to do it: conscience was always suggesting fears of her true identity being discovered: and now that she did speak it was abruptly.
"Have any tidings been heard yet of the young man said to have been lost in the Friar's Keep?"
"No, not any," replied Ethel.
"Is it true, think you, that he was killed?"
Ethel Reene flushed painfully: she could not forget what she had overheard John Bent say.
"Oh, I hope not. Of course, his disappearance is very strange; more than strange. But if--if anything did happen to him that night, it might have been by accident."
"I heard about the matter when I was at the Dolphin," observed Madame Guise, as if wishing to account for speaking of it. "It took much hold upon my interest; it seemed so strange and sad. Did you ever see that Mr. Anthony, Ethel?"
"Yes, I saw him twice. I was prejudiced against him at first, but I grew to like him. I should have liked him very much had he lived; I am sure of it: quite as a brother. Miss Castlemaine of Stilborough liked him: and I think the mystery of his loss has lain heavily upon her."
"What prejudiced you against him?" asked Charlotte.
Ethel smiled, and told the tale. She gave the history of their two meetings; gave it in detail. The tongue is ready when it has a sympathetic hearer: never a more rapt one than she who listened now.
Ethel rose as she concluded it. The disappearance was a subject she did not care to speak of, or dwell upon. Unable to believe Mr. Castlemaine otherwise than innocent, she yet saw that a prejudice had arisen against him.
"Then you will not come out with me, madame?"
"Many thanks, but no."
"What will you do with yourself all day to-morrow?" asked Ethel.
"I shall take holiday," replied Madame Guise, with a flush of colour.
For on the morrow the whole of the family were going from home, having promised to spend the day with some friends who lived near Newerton.
The flush had been caused by Charlotte Guise's self-consciousness. True, she would take holiday on the morrow from her duties; that went as a matter of course; but she was purposing to use the day, or part of it, in endeavouring to make some discovery. These twelve days had she been in the house now, and she was no farther advanced than when she entered it. She had seen Mr. Castlemaine daily; she had conversed with him, dined and taken other meals in his company; but for all the enlightenment she had obtained, or the new ideas she had gathered of the doings of that ill-fated February night, he and she might as well have been far apart as are the two poles. It was not by going on in this tame way that she could hope to obtain any clue to the past: the past to which she had made a vow to devote herself.
The morning rose brightly, and the family went off after breakfast in the carriage, Harry sitting on the box with the coachman. Madame Guise was left alone.
A feverish desire had been upon her to enter Mr. Castlemaine's room upstairs; the study where he kept the accounts pertaining to the estate, and wrote his letters. In this room he passed many hours daily, sitting in it sometimes late into the night. Charlotte Guise held an impression that if she could find tokens or records of her lost husband, it would be there. But she had never yet obtained so much as a glimpse of its interior: the room was considered sacred to Mr. Castlemaine, and the family did not approach it.
Two or three of the women servants had obtained permission to absent themselves that day to visit their friends; and the house was comparatively deserted. Madame Guise, looking forth from her chamber, found all silent and still: the upstairs work was over; the servants, those who remained at home, were shut up in the remote kitchens. Now was her time; now, if ever.
The corridor was spacious. It ran along two sides of the house, and most of the bed chambers opened from it. Mr. Castlemaine's study was the middle room in the side corridor; Madame's bedroom was nearly opposite the room; the one beyond hers being Harry Castlemaine's.
Standing outside her door, in the still silence, with a flushed face and panting breath, not liking the work she was about to do, but believing it a necessity thrown upon her, she at length softly crossed the corridor and opened the outer door leading to the study. A short, dark, narrow passage not much more than a yard in length, and there was another door. This was locked, but the key was in it; she turned the key, and entered the room. Entered it with some undefined feeling of disappointment, for it was bare and empty.
We are all apt to form ideas of places and things as yet unseen. The picture of Mr. Castlemaine's study, in the mind of Charlotte Guise, had been of a spacious apartment filled with furniture, and littered with papers. What she saw was a small square room, and no earthly thing in it, papers or else, but two tables, some chairs, and a bureau against the wall: or what would have been called in her own land a large secretaire, or office desk. She gazed around her with a blank face.
The tables and chairs were bare: no opportunitytherefor anything concealed. The bureau was locked. She tried it; palled it, pushed it: but the closed-down lid was firm as adamant.
"If there exists any record of him, it is in here," she said, half aloud. "I must contrive means of opening it."
She could not do that to-day. It would have to be done with a false key, she supposed; and, that, she had not in her possession. Before quitting the room, she approached the window, and looked forth cautiously. At the sea rolling in the distance; at the Friars' Keep opposite; at the fair green lands lying between that and Greylands' Rest. Charlotte Guise shuddered at a thought that crossed her.
"If he did indeed kill my poor husband and has laid him to rest in the Friars' Keep, how can he bear to be in this room, with that building in front of him to remind him of the deed?"
The day was before her: it was not yet twelve o'clock. Blankly disappointed with her failure, she put on her things to go abroad: there was nothing to stay in for. At the last moment a thought struck her that she would go to Stilborough. She wanted to make some purchases; for the wardrobe brought over from France had not been extensive, either for herself or child. Hastily attiring herself, she told Miles she should not be in to dinner, and started.
And so, just as Anthony Castlemaine had once, and but once, set off to walk to the market-town, did his poor young wife--nay, his widow--set off now. She was a good walker, and, so far, enjoyed the journey and the sweet spring day. She saw the same objects of interest (or of non-interest, as people might estimate them) that he had seen: the tall, fine trees, now budding into life: the country carts and waggons; the clumsy milestones; the two or three farm houses lying back amid their barns and orchards. Thus she reached Stilborough, and did her commissions.
It was late when she got back to Greylands; five o'clock, and she was dead tired. By the time she reached the Dolphin, she could hardly drag one foot before the other. To walk three miles on a fine day is not much; but to go about afterwards from shop to shop, and then to walk back again is something more. Mrs. Bent, standing at the inn door, saw her, brought her in, and set her down to a substantial tea-table. She told the landlady she had been to Stilborough to make purchases--which would come by the van for her on the morrow, and to be left at the Dolphin, if the Dolphin would kindly take them in.
"With pleasure," said Mrs. Bent. "Ned shall take the parcels up to Greylands' Rest."
What with the welcome rest to her tired limbs, and what with Mrs. Bent's hospitable tea and gossip, Madame Guise sat longer than she had intended. It was nearly dark when she went over to the Nunnery--for she had brought a toy and some bonbons for Marie. The Grey Sisters received her as kindly as usual; but they told her the little one did not seem very well; and Madame Guise went upstairs to look at her. Marie was in her little bed, by the side of Sister Betsey's. She seemed restless and feverish. Poor Charlotte Guise began to think that perhaps this climate did not agree with her so well as their own. Taking off her things, she sat down to stay with the child.
"Mrs. Castlemaine said it would be quite midnight before they got home, as they were to make a very long day, so I am in no hurry for an hour or two," she observed. "Miles will think I am lost; but I will tell him how it is."
"Has your little one ever had the measles?" asked Sister Mona.
"The measles?" repeated Madame Guise, puzzled for the moment. "Oh, lea rougeoles--pardon my forgetfulness--no she has not. She has never had anything."
"Then I think, but I am not sure, that she is sickening for the measles now."
"Mon Dieu!" cried the mother in consternation.
"It is nothing," said the Sister. "We have nursed dozens of children, and brought them well through it. In a week little Marie will be about again."
But Madame Guise, unused to these light ailments, and terribly anxious for her only child, whom she could but look upon, as separated from herself, in the light of a martyr, was not easily reassured. She stayed with the child as long as she dared, and begged that Mr. Parker might be sent for in the morning should Marie be no better.
It was late to go home; after eleven; but nevertheless Charlotte Guise took the lonely road past the Friars' Keep and up Chapel Lane. The way had a fascination for her. Since she had been at Greylands' Rest, in going home from the Nunnery in the evening she had always chosen it. What she expected to see or hear, that could bear upon her husband's fate, she knew not; but the vague idea ever lay upon her that she might light upon something. Could she have done it without suspicion, three parts of her time would have been spent pacing about before the chapel ruins, just as John Bent had paced the night he was waiting for his guest.
It was very lonely. All the village had long ago been in bed. The stars were bright; the night was light and clear. Looking over the chapel ruins, she could see the lights of a distant vessel out at sea. Under the hedge, in the very selfsame spot where her husband and John Bent had halted that fatal night, did she now halt, and gaze across at the Keep, Chapel Lane being close upon her left hand.
"No, they could not have been mistaken," ran her thoughts. "If Mr. Castlemaine came down the lane now and crossed over, I should know him unmistakably--and that night was lighter than this, almost like day, for the moon, they say, was never brighter. Then why, unless he were guilty, should Mr. Castlemaine deny that he was there?"
Glancing up at the windows with a shudder, almost fearing she might see the revenant of the Grey Monk pass them with his lamp, or some other revenant, Madame Guise turned up Chapel Lane. At such moments, trifles serve to unstring the nerves of a timorous woman. Sounds struck on Madame Guise's ear, and she drew back, trembling and shaking, amid the thick grove of shrubs and trees skirting one side of the lane.
"Gently, now; gently, Bess," cried a voice not far from her. "You shall go your own pace in less than five minutes, old girl. Gently now."
And to Charlotte Guise's astonishment, she saw Commodore Teague's spring-cart turn out of the dark turning that led from the Hutt, the Commodore driving. Its cover looked white in the starlight; Bess, the mare he thought so much of, had her best harness on. When nearly abreast of Madame Guise, the Commodore pulled up with an exclamation.
"The devil take it! I've forgot to lock the shed door. Stand still, old girl; stand still, Bess."
He got down and ran back. The well-trained animal stood perfectly still. In a few moments' time he was back again, had mounted, and was driving slowly away in the direction of Newerton.
"What can be taking him abroad at this night hour?" Madame said to herself in wonder.
But the encounter, though it had been a silent one, and on the man's part unsuspected, had served to restore somewhat of her courage: the proximity of a human being is so reassuring in the dark and lonely night, when superstitions fancies are running riot. And with a swift step, Charlotte Guise proceeded on her way up Chapel Lane.
Greylands' Cliff was a high cliff: and the huts of the fishermen, nestling in nooks on its side, rendered it very picturesque. Many a lover of art and nature, seeking a subject for his pencil, had sketched this cliff; some few had made it into a grand painting and sent it forth to charm the world.
The two highest cottages on it were of a superior order. Even they were not built on the top; but close under it. They stood nearly side by side; a jutting of rock stretching out between them. The walls were white: and to the side of one of these dwellings--the one nearest the sea--there was a small square piece of sunk level that served now for a little garden. Miss Hallet, to whom the cottage belonged, had caused some loads of good earth to be brought up; she planted a few flowers, a few shrubs, a few sweet herbs, and so nursed the little spot into a miniature garden. Miss Hallet herself was seated just within the open door of the dwelling, darning a rent in a pillow-case. The door opened straight upon this room; a pretty parlour, very well furnished. The kitchen was behind; and two good bedchambers and a smaller room were above. Not a large house, thinks the reader. No: but it was regarded as large by the poorer dwellers on the cliff, and Miss Hallet was looked up to by them as a lady. Having a small but sufficient income, she lived quietly and peaceably, mixing but little with other people.
Through family misfortunes she had been deprived of a home in early life, and she took a situation, half companion, half lady's-maid. The lady she served bequeathed her by will enough money to live upon. Miss Hallet had then saved money of her own; she came to Greylands, her native place, bought the cottage on the cliff, and settled herself in it. Her brother, like herself, had had to turn to and support himself. He went to sea in the merchant service, passed in time the examinations before the Board of Trade, and rose to command a vessel trading to the coast of Spain. But he never got beyond that: and one stormy night the unfortunate vessel sunk with himself and all hands. He left two orphan children, a son and daughter, not provided for; Miss Hallet adopted them, and they came home to her at Greylands. The boy, George, she sent to a good school at Stilborough; he had to walk to and fro night and morning: Jane went to the Grey Sisters. George took to the sea; in spite of all his aunt could say or do. Perhaps the liking for it was innate, and he was always about in boats and on the beach when at Greylands. He at length put himself on board Tom Dance's boat, and said he would be a fisherman, and nothing else. In vain Miss Hallet pointed out to him that he was superior to anything of the kind, and ought to look out for a higher calling in life. George would not listen. Quitting his aunt's roof--for he grew tired of the continual contentions she provoked--he went to lodge in the village, and made apparently a good living. But the treacherous sea took him, just as it had in like manner taken his father. One night during a storm, a ship was sighted in distress: Tom Dance, who was as good-hearted as he was reckless, put off in his boat with George Hallet to the rescue, and George never came back again. Handsome, light-hearted, well-mannered George Hallet was drowned. That was nearly two years ago. He was just twenty years of age; and was said to have already been given a share in Tom Dance's earnings. Tom Dance owned his own substantial boat; and his hauls of fish were good; no doubt profitable also, for he was always flush of money. His son, a silent kind of young man, was his partner now, and went out in the boat with him as George Hallet used to do. They lived in one of the cottages on the beach. Old Mrs. Dance, Tom's mother, had her dwelling in a solitary place underneath the perpendicular cliff: not on the village side of it, as the other dwellings were, but facing the sea. It was a lonely spot, inaccessible at times when the tides were high. Tom Dance, who was generous to his mother, and kept her well, would have had her quit it for a more sociably situated habitation: but the old woman was attached to her many-years homestead, and would not listen to him. When we have grown old in a home, we like it better than any other, no matter what may be its drawbacks.
Miss Hallet finished the darn, and turned the pillow-case about to look for another. She was a tall, fair, angular lady of fifty, with a cold, hard countenance; three or four prim flat curls of grey hair peeped out on her forehead from beneath her cap; tortoiseshell spectacles were stretched across her well-shaped nose. She had a fawn-coloured woollen shawl crossed about her for warmth--for, though a nice spring day, it was hardly the weather yet for one of her age to sit exposed to the open air.
"Why, this must have been cut!"
The spectacles had rested upon an almost imperceptible fray, whose edges were so keen and close as to impart a suspicion that it had never come by natural wear and tear. Miss Hallet drew in her thin lips grimly.
"And since the wash too!" she continued, when the gaze was over. "Jane must know something of this: she helped the woman to fold. Jane is frightfully heedless."
Threading a fresh needleful of the soft, fine darning cotton, she was applying herself to repair the damage, when footsteps were heard ascending the narrow zigzag path. Another minute, and Tom Dance's son loomed into view; a short, sturdy, well-meaning, but shy and silent youth of twenty.
"Father's duty, Miss Hallet, and he has sent up this fish, if you'd be pleased to accept him," said the young man, showing a good-sized fish with large scales, resting on a wicker-tray. Miss Hallet was charmed. Her hard face relaxed into as much of a smile as it could relax.
"Dear me, what a beautiful fish! How good your father is, Wally! Always thinking of somebody! Give him my best thanks back again. You have just got in, I suppose?"
"Just ten minutes ago," responded Wally. "Been out two tides."
"Well, I wonder your father does not begin to think more of his ease--and so well off as he must be! The night seems the same to him for work as the day."
"One catches the best fish under the moon," shortly remarked the young man, as he handed over the wicker-tray.
Miss Hallet took it into the house, and brought it back to him without the fish. Mr. Walter Dance caught the tray with a silent nod, and sped down the steep path at a rate, that, to unaccustomed eyes, might have seemed to put his neck in peril.
Barely had Miss Hallet taken up her sewing again, when another visitor appeared. This one's footsteps were lighter and softer than the young man's, and she was seen almost as soon as heard. A dark-haired, quick-speaking young woman in black. It was Harriet, waiting-maid to Mrs. Castlemaine.
"Is your niece at home, Miss Hallet?"
"No. She's gone to Stilborough. How are you, Harriet?"
"Oh, I'm all right, thank you. What a cliff this is to climb up!--a'most takes one's breath away. Gone to Stilborough, is she? Well, that's a bother!"
"What did you want with her?"
"Has she done any of them han'kerchers, do you know?" returned the young woman, without replying to the direct question.
"I can't say. I know she has begun them. Would you like to come in and sit down?"
"I've no time for sitting down. My missis has sent me off here on the spur of the moment: and when she sends one out on an errand for herself one had best not linger, you know. Besides, I must get back to dress my ladies."
"Oh, must you," indifferently remarked Miss Hallet; who rarely evinced curiosity as to her neighbours' doings, or encouraged gossip upon trifles.
"They are all going off to a dinner party at Stilborough; and missis took it into her head just now that she'd use one of her new fine cambric han'kerchers," continued Harriet. "So she sent me off here to get one."
"But Mrs. Castlemaine is surely not short of fine handkerchiefs!" cried Miss Hallet.
"Short of fine han'kerchers!--why, she's got a drawer fall. It was just a freak for a new thing; that's all."
"Well, I do not know whether one is done, Harriet. Jane has been working at one; she was at it last night; but I did not notice whether she finished it."
"Can't you look, please, Miss Hallet?"
Miss Hallet rose from her chair and went upstairs. She came back empty-handed.
"I don't see the handkerchiefs anywhere in Jane's room, Harriet. I daresay she has locked them up in her work-drawer: she has taken to lock up the drawer lately, I've noticed. If you could wait a few minutes she might be in: she'll not be long now."
"But I can't wait; they start off at five," was the girl's answer: "and the missis and Miss Ethel have both got to be dressed. So I'll say good afternoon, ma'am."
"Good afternoon," repeated Miss Hallet. "Should Jane return in time, if she happens to have finished one of the handkerchiefs, she shall bring it up."
The young woman turned away with a brisk step, but not at the speed Walter Dance had used. By-and-by, quite an hour later, Jane Hallet came in.
A slender, ladylike, nice-looking girl of nineteen; with a fair, soft, gentle face, mild blue eyes, hair light and bright, and almost child-like features. Jane's good looks, of which she was no doubt conscious, and Jane's propensity to dress too much were a source of continual vexation to Miss Hallet: so to say, a stumbling-block in her path. Jane wore a dark blue merino dress, a very pretty grey cloak, with a hood and tassels, and a straw bonnet trimmed with blue. Miss Hallet groaned.
"And you must walk off in all those best things to-day, Jane! Just to go to the wool shop at Stilborough! I wonder what will become of you!"
"It was so fine a day, aunt," came the cheerful, apologetic answer. "I have not hurt them.
"You've not done them good. Are any of those handkerchiefs of Mrs. Castlemaine's finished?" resumed the aunt, after a pause.
"One is."
"Then you must go up at once with it to Greylands' Rest. Don't take your cloak off--unless, indeed, you'd like to change it for your old one which would be the right thing to do," added Miss Hallet, snappishly. "And your bonnet, too!"
Jane stood still for a moment, and something like a cloud passed over her face. She did not particularly care to go to Greylands' Rest.
"I am tired with my walk, aunt."
"That can't be helped: you must take the handkerchief all the same," said Miss Hallet. And she explained the reason, and that she had promised to send one if it were done.
"You will be in time, Jane: it is hardly half-past four. The maid said the family were to start at five."
Jane went up to her chamber; a room that she took care to make look as pretty as she could. A chest of drawers stood by the bed. Taking a key from her pocket, she opened the top long drawer, the only one that was locked, and lifted out the paper of handkerchiefs. Half-a-dozen handkerchiefs of the finest and softest cambric, almost like a spider's web, that Mrs. Castlemaine had given to her to hem-stitch.
Any little job of this kind Jane Hallet was glad to undertake. The money helped to buy her clothes. Otherwise she was entirely dependent upon her aunt. The Grey Ladies had taught her all kinds of fine needlework. When she had none of that to do--and she did not have it often--she filled up her leisure time in knitting lambs' wool socks for a shop at Stilborough. There was no necessity for her to do this, and Miss Hallet did not cordially approve of it; but it gave Jane a feeling of independency.
Snatching a moment to look into the glass and put her hair in order, Jane went down with the handkerchief, neatly folded in thin white paper. All the girls instincts were nice: she was in fact too much of a lady for her position.
"I thought you might be changing those smart things for your everyday ones," crossly spoke Miss Hallet, as Jane went through the sitting-room. "Mrs. Castlemaine wall look askance at your finery."
"There was no time for it, aunt," replied Jane, a sudden blush dyeing her face, as she hastened out.
She ran down the cliff, went past the Grey Nunnery, and so up Chapel Lane--which was the back way to Greylands' Rest, and not the front. It was not her wish or intention to see Mrs. Castlemaine, if she could avoid it; or any of the family. Presenting herself at the back door, she asked for Harriet. One of the other servants took her into a small parlour, and said she would tell the lady's maid. Five o'clock had struck before Harriet bustled in.
"The han'kercher, is it? Mrs. Castlemaine'll be glad. When she sets her mind on a thing, she do set it. Come along, Jane Hallet, she wants to see you."
No opportunity was afforded to Jane of saying no, and she followed Harriet along the passages. Mrs. Castlemaine, her rich black silk dinner dress covered by a large warm shawl, stood in the hall. Ethel Reene, in black net and white ribbons, and wearing her scarlet cloak, was also there. The carriage waited outside. Jane went forward shrinkingly, her face turning pale and red alternately.
"I just want to see it before I take it," said Mrs. Castlemaine, holding out her hand for the handkerchief. "Is it tumbled much? Oh, I see; it is very nice, quite smooth. How well you have kept it, Jane Hallet! Here, Harriet, I don't want this one now."
She tossed back an embroidered handkerchief to the maid, and swept out to the carriage. Ethel smiled at Jane, as she followed her stepmother.
"I'm sure it is very good of you, Jane, to come up with it for mamma," she said, feeling in her sensitive heart that Mrs. Castlemaine had not given one word of thanks to the girl.
Mr. Castlemaine came downstairs, an overcoat on his arm. He nodded kindly to Jane as he passed, and inquired after Miss Hallet. Miles and Harriet stood in the porch, watching the carriage away. Jane was a little behind, just within the hall.
"I thought Mr. Harry was going," observed Harriet. "What has took him not to go?"
"Don't know," said Miles. "One never can be certain of Mr. Harry--whether he goes to a place or whether he doesn't go."
"Perhaps he has walked on," remarked Harriet carelessly, as she turned round. "I say, Jane Hallet, you'll stay and take a dish o' tea, now you are here. We are just going to have it."
But Jane hastily declined. No persuasion, apparently, would induce her to accept the invitation; and she departed at once. Half an hour later Madame Guise and her pupil came home: they had been out for a long walk.
"Have they all gone?" inquired Madame of one of the housemaids.
"Oh, dear, yes, ma'am. Half an hour ago."
Now, this answer deceived Charlotte Guise. She knew the dinner engagement had been accepted by Mr. and Mrs. Castlemaine, their son, and Ethel. She had no thought or idea but what they could collectively keep it: and in saying to the servant "Have they all gone," she comprised the four, and understood that she was answered accordingly.
She and Flora took tea together. The child was growing somewhat more tractable than she used to be. Not much as yet; it was just a little shade of improvement. Flora was always better when her mamma was away; and Madame Guise had no trouble with her on this night. She even went to bed at the appointed hour, eight o'clock, without rebellion, after a regalement of what she was particularly fond of--bread and jam.
"I will take a slice of this bread and butter and jam also," remarked Madame to Miles; "and then I shall not trouble you to bring in supper for me. It will be a nice change. We like this confiture much in my country."
So Madame took her light supper that evening with Flora, and afterwards wrote a letter. At nine o'clock she rang the bell to say she was going up to her room for the night, feeling tired, and should require nothing more. Miles, who had answered the bell, saw her go up with her candle. He put out the sitting-room lights for safety, and went back to the kitchen. His master and mistress were not expected home before hall-past eleven.
In her room stood Charlotte Guise, white as a sheet. She was contemplating a deed that night, from which, in spite of what she deemed her justification for it, she shrank in horror. It was no less a step than the opening with a false key the private bureau of Mr. Castlemaine.
Some little time the best part of a fortnight, had elapsed since that walk of hers to Stilborough and Marie had had the measles--"very kindly," as Mr. Parker and the Grey Sisters expressed it--and was well again. Telling a plausible story of the loss of her keys to a Stilborough locksmith that day, Madame had obtained from him--a key that would undo, if necessary, half the locks in Mr. Castlemaine's house. No opportunity had presented itself for using it until now. Such an occasion as this, when the house was deserted by all, save the servants, might not speedily occur again.
She stood in her chamber, trembling and nervous, the light from the candle reflected on her face. The staircase clock struck the quarter past nine, and her heart beat faster as she heard it. It was the signal she had been waiting for.
For the servants would now be settled at their supper, and were not likely soon to get up from it. Nine o'clock was the nominal hour for the meal: but, as she chanced to know, they rarely sat down to it much before a quarter past. With the house free and nothing to do, they would not hurry themselves over it to-night. Half an hour--nay, an hour, she knew she might freely reckon upon while they were shut up at table in the comfortable kitchen, talking and eating.
Charlotte Guise opened the door and stood to listen. Not a sound save the ticking of the clock broke the stillness. She was quite alone. Flora was fast asleep in her room in the front corridor, next to Mrs. Castlemaine's chamber, for she had been in to see, and she had taken the precaution of turning the key on the child for safety: it would not do to be interrupted by her. Yet another minute she stood listening, candle in hand. Then, swiftly crossing the corridor, she stole into the study through the double doors. A fear had been upon her that she might find the second door a stumbling block, as Mr. Castlemaine sometimes locked it when he went abroad. It was open to-night, and she whisked through it.
The same orderly, unlittered room that she had seen before. No papers lay about, no deeds were left out that could be of use to her. Three books were stacked upon the side table; a newspaper lay on a chair; and that was positively all. The fire had long ago gone out; on the mantelpiece was a box of matches.
Putting down the candle, Charlotte Guise took out her key, and tried the bureau. It opened at once. She swung back the heavy lid and waited a moment to recover herself: her lips were white, her breath came in gasps. Oh, apart from the baseness, the dishonour of the act, which was very present to her mind, what if she were to be caught at it?
Papers were there en masse. The drawers and pigeon-holes seemed to be full of them. So far as she could judge from a short examination--and she did not dare to give a long one--these papers had reference to business transactions, to sales of goods and commercial matters--which she rather wondered at, but did not understand. But of deeds she could see none.
What did Charlotte Guise expect to find? What did she promise herself by this secret search? In truth, she could not have told. She wanted to get some record of her husband's fate, some proof that should compromise the Master of Greylands. She would also have been glad to find some will, or deed of gift, that should show to her how Greyland's Rest had been really left by old Anthony Castlemaine: whether to his son Basil or to James. If to Basil, why there would be a proof--as she, poor thing, deemed it--of the manner in which James Castlemaine had dealt with his nephew, and its urging motive.
No, there was nothing. Opening this bundle of papers, rapidly glancing into that, turning over the other, she could find absolutely nothing to help her: and in the revulsion of feeling which the disappointment caused, she said to herself how worse than foolish she had been to expect to find anything: how utterly devoid of reason she must be, to suppose Mr. Castlemaine would preserve mementos of an affair so dangerous. And where he kept his law papers, or parchments relating to his estate, she could not tell, but certainly they were not in the bureau, unless there were secret receptacles to which she knew not how to penetrate.
Not daring to stay longer, for near upon half an hour must have elapsed, she replaced the things as she had found them, so far as she could remember. All was done save one drawer; a small drawer, at the foot, next the slab. It had but a few receipted bills in it: there was one from a saddler, one from a coach maker, and such like. The drawer was very shallow; and, in closing it, the bills were forced out again. Charlotte Guise, in her trepidation and hurry, pulled the drawer forwards too forcibly, and pulled it out of its frame.
Had it chanced by accident--this little contretemps? Ah, no. When do these strange trifles pregnant with events of moment, occur by chance? At the top of the drawer, itselfinthe drawer, appeared a narrow, closed compartment, opening with a slide. Charlotte drew the slide back, and saw within it a folded letter and some small article wrapped in paper.
The letter, which she opened and read, proved to be the one written by Basil Castlemaine on his death-bed--the same letter that had been brought over by young Anthony, and given to his uncle. There was nothing much to note in it--save that Basil assumed throughout it that the estate was his, and would be his son's after him. Folding it again, she opened the bit of paper: and there shone out a diamond ring that flashed in the candle's rays.
Charlotte Guise took it up and let it fall again. Let it fall in a kind of sick horror, and staggered to a chair and sat down half fainting. For it was her husband's ring.
The ring that Anthony had worn always on his left-hand little finger: the ring that he had on when he quitted Gap. It was the same ring that John Bent and his wife had often noticed and admired; the ring that was undoubtedly on his hand when he followed Mr. Castlemaine that ill-fated night into the Friar's Keep. His poor wife recognized it instantly: she knew it by its peculiar setting.
To her mind it was proof indisputable that he had indeed been put out out of the way for ever. Mr. Castlemaine must have possessed himself of the ring, unwilling that so valuable a jewel should be lost: perhaps had drawn it from Anthony's finger after death. She shuddered at the thought. But, in the midst of her distress, reason told her that this was only a negative proof, after all; not sufficient for her to act upon, to charge Mr. Castlemaine with the murder.
When somewhat recovered, she kissed the ring, and put it back into the small compartment with the letter. Pushing in the slide, she shut the drawer, and closed and locked the bureau; thus leaving all things as she had found them. Not very much result had been gained, it is true, but enough to spur her onwards on her future search. With her mind in a chaos of tumult,--with her brain in a whirl of pain,--with every vein throbbing and fevered, she left the candle on the ground where she had now lodged it, and went to the window, gasping for air.
The night was bright with stars; opposite to her, and seemingly at no distance at all, rose that dark building, the Friar's Keep. As she stood with her eyes strained upon it, though in reality not seeing it, but deep in inward thought, there suddenly shone a faint light at one of its casements. Her attention was awakened now; her heart began to throb.
The faint light grew brighter: and she distinctly saw a form in a monk's habit, the cowl drawn over his head, slowly pass the window; the light seeming to come from a lamp in his outstretched hand. All the superstitions tales she had heard of the place rushed into her mind: this must be the apparition of the Grey Friar. Charlotte Guise had an awful dread of revenants, and she turned sick and faint.
With a cry, only half suppressed, bursting from her parted lips, she caught up the candle, afraid to stay, and flew through the door into the narrow passage. The outer door was opening to her hand, when the voice of Harry Castlemaine was heard in the corridor, almost close to the door.
Ah, far more sick and faint did she turn now! Discovery seemed inevitable. Instinct led her to blow out the light and to push the door as close as she could push it. She dared not shut it: he might have heard the click of the latch. Had the others come home? Was Mr. Castlemaine ascending to his study to catch her there? Trembling, shaking, panting, the unhappy lady stood in this acme of terror, the ghost of the Friar's Keep behind her, the dread of detection before her. And the candle was making a dreadful smell!
That alone might betray her: Harry Castlemaine might push back the door to ascertain where the smell came from. Could the floor have opened and disclosed a yawning pit, the unhappy lady would thankfully have disappeared within it.
The minute seemed like an hour. Harry did not come on. He appeared to have halted close by to listen to something. Miles was speaking below.
"Thought I had gone with them to the dinner, and so put out the lights!" retorted Harry, in his, free, clear, good-natured tones. "You saw the carriage drive away, I suppose, without me. Well, light up again, and bring in some supper."
He came on now, and went into his chamber at the end of the corridor. Staying there a minute or two, as though changing his coat, he passed back, and down stairs again. Charlotte Guise, shaking, in every limb, stole out as the echo of his footsteps died away, closed the door and took refuge in her own room. There she went into hysterics: hysterics that she was totally unable to suppress, and muffled her head in a blanket to deaden the cry.
The next morning there was commotion in the house: Miss Flora Castlemaine had found herself locked in her bedroom. Given to take impromptu excursions in a morning en robe de nuit, after books, or the kitten, or into somebody's bedroom who was sure not to want her, the young lady for once found herself caged. Mrs. Castlemaine made an angry stir about it; locked doors were so dangerous in case of fire, she said. She accused the maid, Eliza, who attended on Miss Flora, and threatened her with dismissal.
"I can be upon my Bible oath that I never locked the door," cried the girl. "Why should I wish to lock it last night, more than any other night? I never touched the key. For the matter of that, I could not tell whether the key was outside or inside. You may send me away this hour, ma'am, but I am innocent, and I can't say more than that."
Poor Madame Guise, who was complaining of migrane this morning, and whose eyes were red and heavy, took the blame upon herself, to exculpate the wrongfully accused servant. In her terror of the previous night, she had totally forgotten to unlock Flora's door. She hastened now to say that she had looked in on the sleeping child when she herself went to bed: in coming out, it was possible she had turned the key. Many of the chamber doors in France shut and opened with the key only, she might have turned the key unthinkingly, meaning but to shut the door.
So the matter ended. But Charlotte Guise could not help feeling how painfully one deceit one wrong act, leads to another. And Mr. Harry, she found, had never been to the dinner at all. Some matter of business, or perhaps some whim, had led him to break his engagement, and to give due notice of it the day beforehand to the entertainers. As Miles had observed, one never could be certain of Harry Castlemaine.