Miss Winter sat in her low chair by the window of her sitting-room in the north wing; for though she had abandoned her bedroom in that quarter, she still, on occasion, sat in that. A closed book lay on her lap, her chin was resting on the palm of one hand, and her eyes, to all appearance, were taking in for the thousandth time the features of the well-known scene before her. But in reality she saw nothing of it: her thoughts were elsewhere. This was Tuesday, the day fixed for Edward Conroy to dine at the Hall. How came it that his image--the image of a man whom she had seen but twice in her life--dwelt so persistently in her thoughts? She was vexed and annoyed with herself to find how often her mind went wandering off in a direction where--or so she thought--it had no right to go. She tried her hardest to keep it under control, to fill it with the occupations that had hitherto sufficed for its quiet contentment, but at the first unguarded moment it was away again, to bask in sunshine, as it were, till caught in the very act, and haled ignominiously back.
"Why must I be for ever thinking about this man?" she asked herself petulantly, as she sat this morning by the window, and a warm flush thrilled her even while the question was on her lips. She was ashamed to remember that even at church on Sunday morning she could not get the face of Edward Conroy out of her thoughts. The good vicar's sermon had been more prosy and commonplace than usual, and do what she might, Ella could not fix her attention on it. She caught herself half a dozen times calling to mind what Conroy had said on Thursday, and wondering what he would say on Tuesday. She had no intention of falling in love, either with him or with any other man; on that point she was firmly resolved. She and Maria Kettle had long ago agreed that they could be of more use in the world, of greater service to the poor, the sick, and the forlorn among their fellow-creatures, as single women than as married ones; and Ella, for her part, had no intention of letting any man carry her heart by storm.
Yet, after making all these brave resolutions, here she was, wondering and hesitating as to which dress she should wear, as she had never wondered or hesitated before; and when the clock struck eleven, she caught herself saying, "In six more hours he will be here." Then she jumped up quickly with a gesture of impatience. She was the slave of thoughts over which she seemed to have no control. It was a slavery that to her proud spirit was intolerable. She could not read this morning. Her piano appealed to her in vain. Her crewel-work seemed the tamest of tame occupations. She put on her hat and scarf, and, calling to Turco, set off at a quick pace across the park. Perhaps the fresh bracing air that blew over the sand-hills would cool the fever of unrest that was in her veins. Once she said to herself, "I wish he had never come to Heron Dyke!" But next moment a proud look came into her face, and she said, "Why should I fear him more than any other?"
Ella Winter has hitherto been spoken of as though she were Mr. Denison's niece; she was in reality his grand-niece, being the grand-daughter of an only sister, who had died early in her married life, leaving one son behind her. This son, at the age of twenty-two, married a sister of Mrs. Carlyon, but his wedded life was of brief duration. Captain Winter and his wife both died of fever in the West Indies, leaving behind them Ella, their only child.
Mrs. Carlyon, a widow and childless, would gladly have adopted the orphan niece who came to her under these sad circumstances, but Squire Denison would not hear of such a thing. He had a prior claim to the child, he said, and she must go to him and be brought up under his care. He had no children of his own, and never would have any: Ella was the youngest and last descendant of the elder branch of the family, and Heron Dyke and all that pertained to it should be hers in time to come, provided always that he, Gilbert Denison, should live to see his seventieth birthday. He had loved his sister Lavinia as much as it was in his nature to love anyone; and her son, had he lived, would, in the due course of things, have been his heir. But he was dead, leaving behind him only this one poor little girl. To Gilbert Denison it seemed that Providence had dealt very hardly by him in giving him no male heir to inherit the family honours. He himself would have married years ago had he anticipated such a result.
For six hundred years the property had come down from male heir to male heir, but now at last the line of direct succession would be broken. "If Ella had only been a boy!" he sighed to himself a thousand times: but Ella was that much more pleasing article--except from the heir-at-law point of view--a beautiful young woman, and nothing could make her anything else.
On the confines of the park, just as she was about to turn out of it, Ella met Captain Lennox, who was coming to call on the Squire. It was the first time Ella had seen him since her return from London, for the Captain had been again from home. He had aristocratic relatives, it was understood, in various parts of the kingdom, and was often away on visits to them for weeks together.
"You are looking better than you were that night at Mrs. Carlyon's," he remarked, as they stood talking.
"Am I?" returned Ella, a rosy blush suffusing her face--for the idea somehow struck her that Mr. Conroy's presence in the neighbourhood might be making her look bright.
"Very much so, I think. Mrs. Carlyon was not quite satisfied with your looks then. By-the-way," added the Captain, after a pause, "has she recovered her jewels, that were lost that night?"
"No. She is quite in despair. I had a letter from her yesterday. You heard of the loss then, Captain Lennox?"
"I heard of it the following day. Ill news travels fast," he added lightly, noting Ella's look of surprise.
"How did you hear of it? I fancied you left London that day."
"No, the next. I heard of it from young Cleeve. He called on Mrs. Carlyon that morning, and came back in time for me and Bootle to see him off. Cleeve told us of the loss on the way to the station. It was a time of losses, Miss Winter. I lost my purse, and poor Bootle his watch--one he valued--the same night."
"Yes, Freddy told us of it later. He thought you were robbed in the street."
"I know he thought so. I did at first. But our losses were nothing compared with Mrs. Carlyon's jewels," continued Captain Lennox rapidly, as though he would cover his last words. "And the jewel-case was found the next day; and the thief must have walked off with the trinkets in his pocket!"
"Just so. And they were worth quite three hundred pounds."
Captain Lennox opened his eyes.
"Three hundred pounds! So much as that! I wonder how they were taken! By some light-handed fellow, I suppose, who contrived to find his way upstairs amid the general bustle of the house."
"No, we think not. The servants say it was hardly possible for anyone to do that unnoticed; Aunt Gertrude thinks the same; And the servants are all trustworthy. It is a curious matter altogether."
Captain Lennox looked at her.
"Surely you cannot suspect any of the guests?"
"It would be uncharitable to do that," was Ella's light answer. But the keen-witted Captain noticed that she did not deny it more emphatically.
"What a pity that the jewels were not safely locked up!" he exclaimed.
"The dressing-room, in which they were, was locked; at least, the key was turned--and who would be likely to intrude into it? Aunt Gertrude remembers that perfectly. She found Philip Cleeve lying on the sofa in her boudoir with a bad headache, and she went into the dressing-room to get her smelling-salts, unlocking the door to enter. Whether she relocked it is another matter."
"Did Cleeve notice whether anybody else went in while he was lying there?"
"He thinks not, but he can't say for certain--we asked him that question the next morning. He fancies that he fell asleep for a few minutes: his head was very bad. Anyway, the jewels are gone, and Aunt Gertrude can get no clue to the thief, so it is hopeless to talk of it," concluded Ella, somewhat wearily. "How is your sister?"
"Quite well, thank you. Why don't you come and see her?"
"I will; I have been very busy since I came home. And tell her, please, that I hope she will come to see me. Good-bye for the present, Captain Lennox: you are going on to my uncle; perhaps you will not be gone when I get back; I shall not be very long."
Ella tripped lightly on, Turco striding gravely beside her. Captain Lennox stood for a minute to look after her.
"I wonder," he muttered to himself, stroking his whiskers--a habit of his when he fell into a brown study--"whether it has crossed Mrs. Carlyon's mind to suspect Philip Cleeve?"
After all her vacillation, Ella went down to dinner that evening in a simple white dress. She could hardly have chosen one to suit her better; at least, so thought Mr. Conroy, when he entered the room. The dinner was not homely, as on the first occasion of his dining there; Ella had ordered it otherwise. It was served on some of the grand old family plate, not often brought to light; and the table was decorated with flowers from the Vicar's charming garden.
But what surprised Aaron more than anything else was to see his master dressed, and wearing a white cravat. He went about the house muttering,sotto voce, that there were no fools like old fools, and if these sort of extravagant doings were about to set in at the Hall--soups and fish and foreign kickshaws--it was time old-fashioned attendants went out of it. The Squire, in fact, had so thoroughly inoculated the old man with his own miserly ways, that for Aaron to see an extra shilling spent on what he considered unnecessary waste, was to set him grumbling for a day.
Whether it was that Ella had a secret dread of passing another evening alone with Conroy, or whether her intention was to render the evening more attractive to him, she had, in any case, asked her uncle to allow her to invite the Vicar and Maria, Lady Cleeve and Philip, and Captain Lennox and his sister, to meet Mr. Conroy at dinner. But here the Squire proved obstinate. Not one of the people named would he invite, or indeed anyone else.
"That young artist fellow is welcome to come and take pot-luck with us," he said, "but I'll have none of the rest. And why I asked him, I'm sure I don't know. There was something about him, I suppose, that took my fancy; though what right an invalid man like me has to have fancies, is more that I can tell."
Conroy seemed quite content to find himself the solitary guest. Ella was more reserved and silent than he had hitherto seen her, but he strove to interest her and melt her reserve; and after a time he succeeded in doing so. Once or twice, at first, when she caught herself talking to him with animation, or even questioning him with regard to this or the other, she suddenly subsided into silence, blushing inwardly as she recognised how futile her resolves and intentions had proved themselves to be. Conroy seemed not to notice these abrupt changes, and in a little while Ella would again become interested, again her eyes would sparkle, and eager questions tremble on her lips. Then all at once an inward sting would prick her, her lips would harden into marble firmness and silence. But these alternations of mood could not last for ever, and by-and-by the charm and fascination of the situation proved too much for her. "After this evening I shall probably never see him again," she pleaded to herself, as if arguing with some inward monitor. "What harm can there be if I enjoy these few brief hours?"
Mr. Denison was more than usually silent. Now and then, after dinner, he dozed for a few minutes in his huge leathern chair; and presently, as though he yearned to be alone, he suggested that Conroy and Ella should take a turn in the grounds.
Ella wrapped a fleecy shawl round her white dress, and they set out. Traces of sunset splendour still lingered in the western sky, but from minute to minute the dying colours changed and deepened: saffron flecked with gold fading into sea-green, and that into a succession of soft opaline tints and pearly greys, edged here and there with delicate amber; while in mid-sky the drowsy wings of darkness were creeping slowly down.
They walked on through the dewy twilight glades of the park. Conroy seemed all at once to have lost his speech. Neither of them had much to say, but to both the silence exhaled a subtle sweetness. There are moments when words seem a superfluity--almost on impertinence. To live, to breathe--to feel that beside you is the living, breathing presence of the one supremely loved, is all that you ask for. It is well, perhaps, that such sweetly dangerous moments come so seldom in a lifetime.
They left the park by a wicket, took a winding footway through the plantation beyond, and reached the sand-hills, where they sat down for a few moments. Before them lay the sea, touched in mid-distance with faint broken bars of silvery light; for by this time the moon had risen, and all the vast spaces of the sky were growing brighter with her presence.
"How this scene will dwell in my memory when I am far away!" exclaimed Conroy at length.
"Are you going far away?" asked Ella, in a low voice.
"I received a letter from head-quarters this morning, bidding me hold myself in readiness to start for Africa at a few hours' notice."
"For Africa! That is indeed a long way off. Why should you be required to go to Africa?"
"The King of Ashantee is growing troublesome. We are likely before long to get from words to blows. War may be declared at any moment."
"And the moment war is declared you must be ready to start?"
"Even so. Wherever I am sent, there I must go."
"Yours is a dangerous vocation, Mr. Conroy. You run many risks."
"A few--not many. As for danger, there is just enough of it to make the life a fascinating one."
"Yes; if I were a man I don't think I could settle down into a quiet country gentleman. I should crave for a wider horizon, for a more adventurous life, for change, for----"
She ended abruptly. Once again her enthusiasm was running away with her. There was a moment's silence, and then she went on, laughing:
"But I am content to be as I am, and to leave such wild rovings to you gentlemen! And now we must go back to my uncle, or he will wonder what has become of us."
Little was said during the walk back. Despite herself, Ella's heart sank at the thought of Conroy's going so far away. She asked, mentally and impatiently, what it could matter to her where he went. Had she not said twenty times that tomorrow all this would seem like a dream, and that in all likelihood she and Conroy would never meet again? What matter, then, so long as they did not see each other, whether they were separated by five miles or five thousand?
"Body o' me! I thought you were lost," exclaimed the Squire, as they re-entered the room. "Been for a ramble, eh? seen the sea! Fine evening for it. And when do you come down into this part of the country again, Mr. Sketcher?"
"That is more than I can say, sir. My movements are most erratic and uncertain."
"Mr. Conroy thinks it not unlikely he may be sent to Africa--to Ashantee," said Ella, a little ring of pathos in her voice.
"Ah--ah--nothing like plenty of change when you are young. Bad climate, though, Ashantee, isn't it? You'll have to be careful Yellow Jack doesn't lay you by the heels. He's a deuce of a fellow out there, from all I've heard. Eh?"
"I must take my chance of that, sir, as other people have to do."
"You talk like a lad of spirit. Snap your fingers in the face of Yellow Jack, and ten to one he'll glance at you and pass you by. It's the tremblers he lays hold of first."
"Why should you be chosen, Mr. Conroy, for these posts of danger?" inquired Ella. "Cannot some one else share such duties?"
"Is it not possible that I may prefer such duties to any other? They do not suit everyone. As it happens they suit me."
"Have you no mother or sister--who may fear your running into unnecessary dangers?"
"I have neither mother nor sister. I have a father; but he lets me do what seems right in my own eyes."
Mr. Denison took what for him was a very cordial leave of Conroy.
"If I am alive when you come back," he said, as he held the younger man's hand in his for a moment, "do not forget that there will be a welcome for you at Heron Dyke. If I am not alive--then it won't matter, so far as I am concerned."
Ella took leave of Conroy at the door. Hardly more than a dozen words passed between them.
"If you must go to Africa," she said, "I hope you will not run any needless risks."
"I will not. I promise it."
"We shall often think of you," she added, in a low voice.
"And I of you, be you very sure."
Her fingers were resting in his hand. He bent and pressed them to his lips, and--the next moment he was gone.
Nullington was a sleepy little town, standing a mile, or more, from Heron Dyke, and boasted of some seven or eight thousand inhabitants. The extension of the railway to Nullington was supposed to have made a considerable addition to its liveliness and bustle: but that could only be appreciated by those who remembered a still more sleepy state of affairs, when the nearest railway station was twenty miles away, and when the Mermaid coach seemed one of those institutions which must of necessity last for ever.
Nullington stood inland. Of late years a sort of suburb to the old town had sprung up with mushroom rapidity on the verge of the low sandy cliffs that overlooked the sea, to which the name of New Nullington had been given. Already New Nullington possessed terraces of lodging-houses, built to suit the requirements of visitors, and some good houses were springing up year by year. Several well-to-do families, who liked "the strong sweet air of the North Sea," had taken up their residence thereen permanence.
It was a pleasant walk from New Nullington along the footpath by the edge of the cliff, with the wheat-fields on one hand and the sea on the other. When you reached the lighthouse, the cliff began to fall away till it became merged in great reaches of shifting sand, which stretched southward as far as the eye could reach. Here, at the junction of cliff and sand, was the lifeboat station, while a few hundred yards inland, and partly sheltered from the colder winds by the sloping shoulder of the cliff, stood the little hamlet of Easterby. A few fishermen's cottages, a few labourers' huts--and they were little better than huts--an alehouse or two, a quaint old church which a congregation of fifty people sufficed to fill, and a few better-class houses scattered here and there, made up the whole of Easterby.
Easterby and New Nullington might be taken as the two points of the base of a triangle, with the sea for their background, of which the old town formed the apex. The distance of the latter was very nearly the same from both places. About half-way between Easterby and the old town of Nullington, you came to the lodge which gave access to the grounds and Hall of Heron Dyke.
On the other side of Nullington, on the London road, stood Homedale, a pretty modern-built villa, standing in its own grounds, the residence of Lady Cleeve and her son Philip.
Lady Cleeve had not married until late in life, and Philip was her only child. She had been the second wife of Sir Gunton Cleeve, a baronet of good family but impoverished means. There was a son by the first marriage, who had inherited the title and such small amount of property as came to him by entail. The present Sir Gunton was in the diplomatic service at one of the foreign courts. He and his step-mother were on very good terms. Now and then he wrote her a cheery little note of a dozen lines, and at odd times there came a little present from him, just a token of remembrance, which was as much as could be expected from so poor a man.
Lady Cleeve had brought her husband fifteen thousand pounds in all, the half of which only was settled on herself; and her present income was but three hundred and fifty pounds a year. The house, however, was her own. She kept two women-servants, and lived of necessity a plain and unostentatious life; saving ever where she could for Philip's sake. That young gentleman, now two-and-twenty years old, was not yet in a position to earn a guinea for himself; though it was needful that he should dress-well and have money to spend, for was he not the second son of Sir Gunton Cleeve?
For the last two years Philip had been in the office of Mr. Tiplady, the one architect of whom Nullington could boast, and who really had an extensive and high-class practice. Mr. Tiplady had known and respected Lady Cleeve for a great number of years; and, being quite cognisant of her limited means, he had agreed to take Philip for a very small premium, but as yet did not pay him any salary. The opening was not an unpromising one, there being some prospect that Philip might one day succeed to the business, for the architect had neither chick nor child.
Another prospect was also in store for Philip--that he should marry Maria Kettle. The Vicar and Lady Cleeve, old and firm friends, had somehow come to a tacit notion upon the point years ago, when the children were playfellows together; and Philip and Maria understood it perfectly--that they were some day to make a match of it. It was not distasteful to either of them. Philip thought himself in love with Maria; perhaps he was so after a fashion; and there could be little doubt that Maria loved Philip with all her heart. And though she could not see her way clear to leave the parish as long as her father was vicar of it, she did admit to herself in a half-conscious way that if, in the far, very far-off future, she could be brought to change her condition, it would be for the sake of Philip Cleeve.
Midway between the old town and the new one, was The Lilacs, the pretty cottage ornée of which Captain Lennox and his sister, Mrs. Ducie, were the present tenants. The cottage was painted a creamy white, and had a verandah covered with trailing plants running round three sides of it. It was shut in from the high-road by a thick privet-hedge and several clumps of tall evergreens. Flower-borders surrounded the house, in which was shown the perfection of ribbon-gardening, and the well-kept lawn was big enough for Badminton or lawn-tennis. There was no view from the cottage beyond its own grounds. It lay rather low, and was perhaps a little too much shut in by trees and greenery: all the same, it was a charming little place.
Here, on a certain evening in September, for the weeks have gone on, a pleasant little party had met to dine. There was the host, Captain Lennox. After him came Lord Camberley, a great magnate of the neighbourhood. The third was our old acquaintance, Mr. Bootle, with his eye-glass and his little fluffy moustache. Last of all came handsome Philip Cleeve, with his brown curly hair and his ever-ready smile. The only lady present was Mrs. Ducie.
Teddy Bootle had run down on a short visit to Nullington, as he often did. He and Philip had found Captain Lennox and Lord Camberley in the billiard-room of the Rose and Crown Hotel--Master Philip being too fond of idling away his hours, and just now it was a very slack time at the office. Lennox at once introduced Mr. Bootle to his lordship, and he condescended to be gracious to the little man, whose income was popularly supposed to be of fabulous extent. Philip he knew to nod to; but the two were not much acquainted. The Captain proposed that they should all go home and dine with him at The Lilacs, and he at once scribbled a note to his sister, Mrs. Ducie, that she might be prepared for their arrival.
Lord Camberley was a good-looking, slim-built, dark-complexioned man of eight-and-twenty. He had a small black moustache, his hair was cropped very short, and he was fond of sport as connected with the racecourse. By his father's death a few months ago he had come into a fortune of nine thousand a year. He lived, when in the country, at Camberley Park, a grand old Elizabethan mansion about five miles from Nullington, where his aunt, the Honourable Mrs. Featherstone, kept house for him.
It was at the billiard-table that he and Lennox had first met. A billiard-table is like a sea voyage: it brings people together for a short time on a sort of common level, and acquaintanceships spring up which under other circumstances would never have had an existence. The advantage is that you can drop them again when the game is over, or the voyage at an end: though people do not always care to do that. In the dull little town of Nullington the occasional society of a man like Captain Lennox seemed to Lord Camberley an acquisition not to be despised. They had many tastes and sympathies in common. The Captain was always well posted up in the state of the odds; in fact, he made a little book of his own on most of the big events of the year. There were few better judges of the points of a horse or a dog than he. Then he could be familiar without being presuming: Lord Camberley, who never forgot that he was a lord, hated people who presumed. Lennox, in fact, was a "deuced nice fellow," as he more than once told his aunt. Meanwhile he cultivated his society a good deal: he could always drop him when he grew tired of him, and it was his lordship's way to grow tired of everybody before long.
Five minutes after they had assembled Margaret Ducie entered the room. Lord Camberley had seen her several times previously, but to Bootle and Philip she was a stranger. Her brother introduced them. There was perhaps a shade more cordiality in the greeting she accorded to Bootle than in the one she vouchsafed to Philip. Camberley, the cynical, who was looking on, and who prided himself, with or without cause, on his knowledge of the sex, muttered under his breath, "She knows already which is the rich man and which the poor clerk. Lennox must have put her up to that."
Mrs. Ducie was a brunette. She had a great quantity of jet-black silky hair, and large black liquid eyes. Her nose was thin, high-bred, and aquiline, and she rarely spoke without smiling. Her figure was tall and somewhat meagre in its outlines; but whether she sat, or stood, or walked, every movement and every pose was instinct with a sort of picturesque and unstudied grace. She dressed very quietly, and when abroad her almost invariable wear was a gown of some plain black material. But about that simple garment there was a style, a fit, a suspicion of something in cut or trimming, in the elaboration of a flounce here or the addition of a furbelow there, that to the observant mind hinted at the latest Parisian audacity, and of secrets which as yet were scarcely whispered beyond Mayfair. The ladies of Nullington and its neighbourhood could only envy and admire, and imitate afar off.
Mrs. Ducie was one of those women whose age it is next to impossible to guess correctly. "She's thirty if she's a day," Lord Camberley had said to himself, within five minutes of his introduction to her. "She can't possibly be more than three-and-twenty," was Philip Cleeve's verdict to-day. The truth, in all probability, lay somewhere between the two.
Whatever her age might be, Lord Camberley had a great admiration for Mrs. Ducie, but it was after a fashion of his own. He was thoroughly artificial himself, and rustic beauty, or simplicity eating bread and butter in a white frock, had no charms for him. He liked a woman who had seen and studied the world of "men and manners;" and that Mrs. Ducie had travelled much, and seen many phases of life, he was beginning by this time to discover. He was on his guard when he first made her acquaintance, lest he might be walking into a matrimonial trap, artfully baited by herself and her brother; for Lord Camberley was a mark for anxious mothers and daughters: not but that he felt himself quite capable of looking after his own interests on that point. Still, however wide-awake a man may believe himself to be, it is always best to be wary in this crafty world; and very wary he was the first three or four times he visited The Lilacs. He was not long, however, in perceiving that, whatever matrimonial designs Margaret Ducie might or might not have elsewhere, she was without any as far as he was concerned; and from that time he felt at ease in the cottage.
Captain Lennox's little dinners were thoroughly French in style and cookery. They were good without being over-elaborate. Camberley's idea was that the pretty widow, despite her white and delicate hands, was oftener in the kitchen than most people imagined. When dinner was over, the gentlemen adjourned to the verandah to smoke their cigars and sip their coffee; while in the drawing-room, the French windows of which were open to the garden lighted only by one shaded lamp, Margaret sat and played in a minor key such softly languishing airs, chiefly from the old masters, as accorded well with the September twilight and thefar nientefeeling induced by a choice dinner.
Philip Cleeve felt like a man who dreams and is yet awake. Never before had he been in the company of a woman like Mrs. Ducie. There was a seductive witchery about her such as he had no previous knowledge of. It was not that she took more notice of him than of anyone else--it maybe that she took less; but he fell under the influence of that subtle magnetism, so difficult to define, and yet so very evil in its effects, which some women exercise over some men, perhaps without any wish or intention on their part of doing so. In the case of Philip it was a sort of mental intoxication, delicious and yet with a hidden pain in it, and with a vague underlying sense of unrest and dissatisfaction for which he was altogether unable to account.
After a time somebody proposed cards--probably it was Camberley--and as no one objected, they all went indoors.
"What are we going to play?--whist?" queried Lennox, while the servant was arranging the table.
"Nothing so slow as whist, I hope," said his lordship. "A quiet hand at 'Nap' would be more to my taste."
"How say you, gentlemen? I suppose we all play that vulgar but fascinating game?" said the Captain.
"I know a little of it," answered Bootle.
"I have only played it once," said Philip.
"If you have played once, it's as good as having played it a thousand times," said Camberley, dogmatically. "I'm not over-brilliant at cards myself, but I picked up Napoleon in ten minutes."
"Shilling points, I suppose?" said Lennox.
Camberley shrugged his shoulders, but said nothing, and they all sat down.
There was an arched recess in the room, fitted with an ottoman. It was Mrs. Ducie's favourite seat. Here she sat now, engaged on some piece of delicate embroidery, looking on, and smiling, and giving utterance to an occasional word or two between the deals, but not interrupting them.
Philip Cleeve, notwithstanding that he was less conversant with the game than his companions, and that the black eyes of Mrs. Ducie would persist in coming between him and his cards--he could see her from where he sat almost without a turn of his head--was very fortunate in the early part of the evening, carrying all before him. He found himself, at the end of an hour and a half's play, a winner of close on three sovereigns, which to a narrow pocket seems a considerable sum.
"This is too sleepy!" cried Camberley at last. "Can't we pile up the agony a bit, eh, Lennox?"
"I'm in your hands," said the Captain.
"What say you, Mr. Bootle?" queried his lordship. "Shall we turn our shillings into half-crowns? That will afford a little more excitement, eh?"
"Then a little more excitement let us have by all means," answered good-natured Freddy, who cared not whether he lost or won.
But now Philip's luck seemed at once to desert him. What with the extra wine he had taken, and the glamour cast over him by the proximity of Mrs. Ducie, his judgment became entirely at fault. In half an hour he had lost back the whole of his winnings; a little later still, his pockets were empty. It is true he only had two sovereigns about him at starting, so that his loss was not a heavy one; but it was quite heavy enough for him. He was hesitating what he should do next--whether borrow of Bootle or Lennox--when all at once he remembered that he had money about him. In the course of the day he had collected an account amounting to twenty pounds, due to Mr. Tiplady, and it was still in his possession. He felt relieved at once. There was a chance of winning back what he had lost. With a hand that shook a little he poured out some wine and water at the side-table, and then sat down to resume his play.
When the clock on the chimney-piece chimed eleven, Lord Camberley threw down his cards, saying he would play no more, and Philip Cleeve found himself with a solitary half-sovereign left in his pocket.
He got up, feeling stunned and giddy, and stepped out through the French window into the verandah. Here he was presently joined by the rest. Lennox thrust a cigar into his hand, and they all lighted up. The night was sultry; but after the warmth of the drawing-room such fresh air as there was seemed welcome to all of them. They went slowly down the main walk of the garden towards the little fish-pond at the end, Camberley and Mrs. Ducie, for she had strolled out too, being a little behind the others.
"I am going to drive my drag to the Agricultural Show at Norwich next Tuesday," said his lordship to her. "Lennox has promised to go. May I hope that you will honour me with your company on the box seat on the occasion?"
"Who is going beside yourself and Ferdinand?" she asked.
"Captain Maudesley, and Pierpoint. Sir John Fenn will probably pack himself inside with his gout."
"But the other ladies--who are they?"
"Um--well, to tell you the truth, I had not thought about asking any other lady."
"Ah! Then, I'm not sure that I should care to go with you, Lord Camberley. Five gentlemen and one lady--that would never do."
"Let me beg of you to reconsider----"
"Pray do nothing of the kind. I would rather not."
"I am awfully sorry," said his lordship, in something of a huff. "Confound this cigar! And confound such old-fashioned prudish notions!" he added to himself. "I'd not have thought it of her."
She walked back, after saying a pleasant word or two, and fell into conversation with Philip Cleeve. He seemed distrait. She thought he had taken enough champagne, and felt rather sorry for the young fellow.
"Do you never feel dull, Mrs. Ducie," he asked, "now that you have come to live among the sand-hills?"
"Oh no. The people I have been introduced to here are all very nice and kind; and then I have my ponies, you know; and there's my music, and my box from Mudie's once a month; so that I have not much time for ennui. My tastes are neither very æsthetic nor very elevated, Mr. Cleeve."
"They are at least agreeable ones," answered Philip.
As Philip Cleeve walked home a war of feelings was at work within him, such as he had never experienced before. On the one hand there was the loss of Mr. Tiplady's twenty pounds; which must be made good tomorrow morning. He turned hot and cold when he thought of what he had done. He knew it was wrong, dishonourable--what you will. How he came to do it he could not tell--just as we all say when the apple's eaten and only the bitter taste left. He must ask his mother to make good the loss; but it would never do to tell her the real facts of the case. He should not like her to think him dishonourable--and she was not well, and it would vex her terribly. He must go to her with some sort of excuse--a poor one would do, so utterly unsuspicious was she. This was humiliation indeed. He was almost ready to take a vow never to touch a card again. Almost; but not quite.
On the other hand, his thoughts would fly off to Margaret Ducie and her thousand nameless witcheries. There was quite a wild fever in his blood when he dwelt on her. It seemed a month since he had last seen and spoken with Maria Kettle--Maria, that sweet, pale abstraction, who seemed to him to-night so unsubstantial and far away. But he did not want to think of her just now. He wanted to forget that he was engaged to her, or as good as engaged. Though some innate voice of conscience whispered that, if he valued his own peace of mind, it would be well for him to keep out of the way of the beautiful ignis fatuus which had shone on his path to-night for the first time.
It was just about this time that Squire Denison, dining alone, was taken ill at the dinner-table. Very rarely indeed was Ella out at that hour, but it chanced that she had gone to spend a long evening with Lady Cleeve. The Squire's symptoms looked alarming to Aaron Stone and his wife; and the young man, Hubert, went off on horseback to Nullington, to summon Dr. Spreckley.
The Doctor had practised in Nullington all his life. He was a man of sixty now, with a fine florid complexion; he was said to be a lover of good cheer and to have a weakness for the whisky bottle; though nobody ever saw him the worse for what he had taken. He had a cheerful, hearty way with him, that to many people was better than all his physic, seeming to think that most of the ills of life could be laughed away if his patients would only laugh heartily enough. Mr. Denison had great confidence in him; and no wonder, seeing that he had attended him for twenty years. Dr. Spreckley was not merely the Squire's medical attendant, but news-purveyor-in-general to him as well. Now that the Squire got out so little himself and saw so few visitors at the Hall, he looked to Spreckley to keep himau courantwith all the gossip anent mutual acquaintances and all the local doings for a dozen miles round; and Spreckley was quite equal to the demands upon him. During the past year or two Mr. Denison had experienced several of the sudden attacks; but none of so violent a nature as was the one this evening. Dr. Spreckley's cheerful face changed when he saw the symptoms, and the look, momentary though it was, was not lost on the sick man.
"Where's Miss Winter?" asked the Doctor, somewhat surprised at her absence.
"Miss Ella's gone to Lady Cleeve's for the evening, sir," answered Mrs. Stone, who was in attendance.
"And a good thing too," put in the Squire, rousing himself. "Look here--I won't have her told I've been ill. Do you hear--all of you? No good to worry the lassie."
Dr. Spreckley administered certain remedies, saw the Squire safely into bed, and stayed with him for a couple of hours afterwards, Aaron supplying him with a small decanter of whisky. The symptoms were already disappearing, and Dr. Spreckley's face was hopeful.
"You'll be all right, Squire, after a good night's rest," said he, with all his hearty cheerfulness. "I'll be over by ten o'clock in the morning."
When Ella returned, as she did at nine o'clock, nothing was told her. "The master felt tired, and so went to bed betimes," was all Mrs. Stone said. And Ella suspected nothing.
While she was breakfasting the next morning--her uncle sometimes took his alone in his room--Aaron came to her, and said the master wanted her. Ella hastened to him.
"Why! are you in bed, uncle dear?" she exclaimed.
"One of my lazy fits--that's all; thought I'd have breakfast before I got up. Why not? Got a mind for a walk this fine morning, dearie?"
"Yes, uncle, if you wish me to go anywhere. It is a beautiful morning."
"So, so! one should get out this fine weather when one can: wish my legs were as young to get over the ground as they used to be. I want you to go to the vicarage, child, and take a letter to Kettle that I've had here these few days. It's about the votes for the Incurables, and it's time it was attended to. Tell him he must see to it for me and fill it up. Mind you are with him before ten o'clock, and then he'll not be gone out."
"Yes, uncle. I will be sure to go."
"And look here, lassie," added the Squire; "if you like to stay the morning with Maria, you can. I shan't want you; I shall be pottering about here half the day."
Having thus got rid of his niece, the coast was clear for Dr. Spreckley. True to his time, the Doctor drove up in his ramshackle old gig.
"You are better this morning; considerably better," he said to his patient after a quiet examination. "That was a nasty attack, and I hope we shan't have any more of them for a long time to come."
"I was worse, Doctor, than even you knew of," said Mr. Denison. "The wind of the grave blew colder on me yesterday evening than it has ever blown before. Another such bout, and out I shall go, like the snuff of a candle. Eh, now, come?"
"We must hope that you won't have another such bout, Squire," was Dr. Spreckley's cheerful answer.
"Is there nothing you can prescribe, or do, Doctor, that will guarantee me against another such attack?" asked Mr. Denison, with almost startling suddenness.
Dr. Spreckley put down the phial he had taken in his hand, and faced his patient.
"I should be a knave, Squire, to say that I could guarantee you against anything. We can only do our best and hope for the best."
Mr. Denison was silent for a few moments, then he began again.
"Look here, Spreckley; you know my age--on the twenty-fourth of next April I shall be seventy years old. You know, too, what interests are at stake, and how much depends upon my living to see that day."
"I am not likely to forget," said the Doctor. "These are matters that we have talked over many a time."
"Do you believe in your heart, Spreckley, that I shall live to see that day--the twenty-fourth of next April?"
The question was put very solemnly, and the sick man craned his long neck forward and stared at the Doctor with wild hungry eyes, as though his salvation depended on the next few words.
The physician's ruddy cheek lost somewhat of its colour as he hesitated. He fidgeted nervously with his feet, he coughed behind his hand, and then he turned and faced his patient. The signs had not been lost on the Squire.
"Really, my dear sir, your question is a most awkward one," said Spreckley, slowly, "and one which I am far from feeling sure that I am in a position to answer with any degree of accuracy."
"Words--words--words!" exclaimed the sick man, turning impatiently on his pillow. "Man alive! you can answer my question if you choose to do so. All I ask is, do youbelieve, do you think in your own secret heart, that I shall live to see the twenty-fourth of April? You can answer me that."
"Are you in earnest in wishing for an answer, Mr. Denison?"
"Most terribly in earnest. I tell you again that another turn like that of last night would finish me. At least, I believe it would. And I might have another attack any day or any hour, eh?"
"You might. But--but," added the Doctor, striving to soften his words, "it might not be so severe, you know."
"There are several things that I want to do before I go hence and am seen no more," spoke the Squire in a low tone. "You would not advise me to delay doing them?"
"I would not advise you, or any man, to delay such matters."
"You do not think in your heart that I shall live to see the twenty-fourth of April--come now, Spreckley!"
The Doctor placed his hand gently on Mr. Denison's wrist, and bent forward.
"If you must have the truth, you must."
"Yes, yes," was the eager, impatient interposition. "The truth--the truth."
"Well, then--these attacks of yours are increasing both in frequency and violence. Each one that comes diminishes your reserve of strength. One more sharp attack might, and probably would, prove fatal to you."
"You must ward it off, Spreckley."
"I don't know how to."
The Squire lifted his hand slightly, and then let it drop on the coverlet again. Was it a gesture of resignation, or of despair? His chin drooped forward on his breast, and there was unbroken silence in the room for some moments.
"Doctor," said Mr. Denison then, and his tones sounded strangely hollow, "I will give you five thousand pounds if you can keep me alive till the twenty-fifth of April. Five thousand, Spreckley!"
"All the money in the world cannot prolong life by a single hour when our time has come," said the surgeon. "You know that as well as I, Mr. Denison. Whatever human skill can do for you shall be done; of that you may rest assured."
"But still you think I can't last out--eh?"
The Doctor took one of his patient's hands and pressed it gently between both of his. "My dear old friend, I think that nothing short of a miracle could prolong your life till then," and there was an unwonted tremor in his voice as he spoke.
Nothing more was said. Dr. Spreckley turned to the door, remarking that he would come up again later in the day.
"There's no necessity," said the Squire, with spirit, as if he took the fiat in dudgeon and did not believe it. "No occasion for you to come at all to-day. I am better; much better. I should not have stayed in bed this morning, only you ordered me."
"Very well, Squire."
Mr. Denison lay back on his pillow and shut his eyes as the door closed on his friend and physician. Aaron Stone, coming into the room a little later, thought his master was asleep, and went out without disturbing him. An hour later Mr. Denison's bell rang loudly and peremptorily. The Squire was sitting up in bed when Aaron entered the room, and the old man marvelled to see him look so much better in so short a time. "An hour since he was like a man half dead, and now he looks as well as he did a year ago," muttered Aaron to himself. There was, indeed, a brightness in his eyes and a faint colour in his cheeks, such as had not been seen there for a long time; and his voice had something of its old sharp and peremptory tone.
"Aaron, what do you think Dr. Spreckley has been telling me this morning?" he suddenly asked.
"I'm a bad hand at guessing, Squire, as you ought to know by this time," was the somewhat ungracious answer.
"He tells me that I shall not live to see the twenty-fourth of next April."
Aaron's rugged face turned as white as it was possible for it to turn; a small tray that he had in his hands fell with a crash to the ground.
"Oh! master, don't say that--don't say that!" he groaned.
"But I must say it: and what's more, I feel it may be true," returned the Squire.
"I can't believe it; and I won't," stammered the old servant: who, whatever his faults of temper might have been, was passionately attached to his master. Aaron had never seriously thought the end was so near. The Squire had had these queer attacks, it was true: but did he not always rally from them and seem as well as ever? Why, look at him now!
"Spreckley must be a fool, sir, to say such a thing as that! Had he been at the whisky bottle?"
"I forced the truth from him," spoke the Squire. "It is always safest to get at the truth, however unpalatable it may be. Eh, now?"
"I'm fairly dazed," said the old man. "But I don't believe it. When you go, master, it will be time for me to go too."
"It's not that I'm afraid to go," said the Squire--"when did a Denison fear to die?--and Heaven knows my life has not been such a pleasant one of late years that I need greatly care to find the end near. It's the property, Aaron--this old roof-tree and all the broad acres--you know who will come in for them if I don't live to see next April."
The old serving-man's mouth worked convulsively; he tried to speak but could not. Tears streamed down his rugged cheeks. Pretending to busy himself about the fireplace, he kept his back turned to the Squire.
"If it were not for that, I should not care how soon my summons came," continued Mr. Denison; "but it's hard to have the apple snatched from you at the moment of victory. I would give half that I'm possessed of to anyone who would insure my living to the end of next April. Why not?"
"What's Spreckley but an old woman? he don't know," said Aaron. "Why don't you have some of the big doctors down from London, sir? Like enough they could pull you through when Spreckley can't."
The Squire laughed, a little dismally.
"You seem to forget that I had a couple of bigwigs down from London on the same errand some months ago. They and Spreckley had a consultation, and what was the result? They fully endorsed all that he had done, and said that they themselves could not have improved on his method of treatment. It would not be an atom of use, old comrade, to have them down again. That's my belief."
It was not Aaron's. He had no particular opinion of Spreckley--and he was fearfully anxious.
"Poor Ella! Poor lassie!" murmured the Squire, very gently. "I always hoped she would be the mistress of Heron Dyke when I was gone. But--but--but----" He broke off. He could not speak of it. Things just now seemed very bitter, grievously hard to bear.
"Won't you get up, master?"
"Not just now. You can come in by-and-by, Aaron," replied the Squire: and Aaron crept out of the room without another word.
The sitting-room of Aaron Stone and his wife was a homely apartment, opening from the kitchen. To this he betook himself, shut the door behind him, and sat down in silence. Dorothy had her lap full of white paper, cutting it out in fringed rounds to cover some preserves that had been made. Happening to look at her husband, she saw the tears trickling fast down his withered cheeks.
Dorothy's eyes and mouth alike opened. She gazed at him with a mixture of curiosity and alarm. Not for twenty years had she seen such a sight. Pushing back her silver hair under her neat white cap, she dropped the scissors and the paper, and sat staring.
"What is it?" she asked in a faint voice, picturing all kinds of unheard-of evils. "Anything happened to the lad, Aaron?"
"The lad" was Hubert, her grandson. He was very dear to Dorothy: perhaps not less so to Aaron. Aaron did not answer; could not: and, as if to relieve her fears, Hubert came in the next moment.
"Why, grandfather, what on earth has come to you?" cried the young man, no less astonished than Dorothy.
With a half sob, Aaron told what had come to them: the trouble had taken all his crusty ungraciousness out of him. The master was going to die. Spreckley said he could not keep him alive until next April. And Miss Ella would have to turn out of Heron Dyke to make way for those enemies, the other branch. And they should have to turn out too; and he and Dorothy, for all he knew, would die in the workhouse!
An astounding revelation. No one spoke for a little while. Then Dorothy began with her superstitions.
"I knew we should have a death in the house before long. There's been a winding-sheet in the candle twice this week; and on Sunday night as I came over the marshes three corpse-candles appeared there, and seemed to follow me all the way across. I didn't think it would be the Squire, though: I thought of Bolton's wife."
Bolton was the coachman, and his wife was delicate.
"Hush, granny!" reproved Hubert; "all that is nonsense, you know. Why does not the Squire call in further advice?" he added after a pause. "Spreckley's not good for much save a gossip."
"I asked him why not," said Aaron; "but he seems to think his time is come. If they could only keep him alive till next April, he says: that's all he harps upon."
"And I am sure there must be means of doing it," cried Hubert. "What one medical man can't do, another may. I have a great mind to call in Dr. Jago--saying nothing about it beforehand. He is wonderfully clever."
"The master might not forgive you, Hubert."
"But if the new man could prolong his life!" debated Hubert. "I'll think about it," he added, catching up his low-crowned hat.
He walked across the yard in his well-made shooting-coat that a lord might wear, and whistled to one of the dogs. The two housemaids stood in what was called the keeping-room, ironing fine things at the table underneath the window. They looked after the young man with admiring eyes. He held himself aloof from them, as a master does from a servant, but the girls liked him, for in manner to them he was civil and kind.
"Is he not handsome?" cried Ann. "And aren't both the old people proud of him?"
"What do you think I saw last night?" said Martha in a low tone, as Hubert Stone disappeared through the green door leading to the shrubbery. "I was coming home from that errand to Nullington, when, out there in the park, hiding behind a tree and peering at our windows here, was a grey figure that one might have taken for a ghost--poor Susan Keen. She did give me a turn, though."
"I wonder they don't stop her watching the house at night in the way she does," returned Ann, shaking out one of Mrs. Stone's muslin caps. "It gives one a creepy feeling to have her watching the windows like that--and to know what she's watching for."
"You know what she says, Ann!"
"Yes, I know; and a very uncomfortable thing it is," rejoined the younger servant. "If she sees Katherine at the window----"
"She told me again last night that she does see her," interrupted the elder; "has seen her three times now, in all. She says that Katherine stands at the window of her old room, in the moonlight."
Ann began to tremble; she was nearly as superstitious as old Dorothy.
"Don't you see what it implies, Martha? If Katherine is seen at the window, she must be in the house, that's all. I wish they'd have that north wing barred up!"
"You are ironing that net handkerchief all askew, Ann!"
"One has not got one's proper wits, talking of these ghostly things," was Ann's petulant answer, as she lifted the net off the blanket with a fling.
Hubert, meanwhile, was going down to the shore. What he had learnt troubled him in no measured degree, and his busy brain was hard at work. If only this fiat, which threatened evil to all of them, might be averted!
The tide was out, and he walked along the sands, flinging his stick now and again into the water for the dog to fetch out, as he recalled what he had heard about the almost miraculous skill of this Dr. Jago; who was said, nevertheless, to be an unscrupulous man in his remedies--kill or cure. Could he keep that life in Mr. Denison, which, as it appeared, Dr. Spreckley could not? These bold practitioners were often lucky ones. If Jago----
Hubert Stone halted, both in steps and thought. There flashed into his mind, he knew not why, something he had read in an old French work, recently bought: for the young fellow was a good French scholar. It was a case analogous to Mr. Denison's--where a patient had been kept alive, in spite of nature--or almost in spite of it. The means tried then, which were minutely described, might answer now. Hubert's breath quickened as he thought of it. For two hours he slowly paced the sands, revolving this and that.
A strange look of mingled excitement and determination sat on his face when he got back to the Hall. Mrs. Stone lamented to him that the dinner was over, meaning their dinner, and was all cold now. Hubert answered that he did not want dinner; but he wanted to see the Squire if he were alone. Yes, he was alone; and he seemed pretty well now. And not a word was to be breathed to Miss Ella about his illness: these were the strict orders issued.
When Hubert went in he found the Squire seated in his easy-chair in front of the fire. He looked very worn and thin, but his eyes were as resolute and his lips as firmly set as they had ever been.
"After what my grandfather told me this morning I could not help coming to see you, sir," said Hubert. "This is very sad news; but I hope that it is much exaggerated."
"There's no exaggeration about it, boy. You see before you, I fear, a dying man. Come now!"
"I am very, very sorry to hear it."
"Ay--ay--good lad, good lad! Some of you will miss me a bit, eh?"
"We shall all miss you very much, Squire: we shall never have such a master again. Of course, sir, I know that your great wish all along has been to live till your seventieth birthday had come and gone. Surely you will live to see that wish fulfilled!"
"That's just what I shan't live to see, if Spreckley's right," answered the Squire, and his face darkened as he spoke. "For my life I care little; it has been like a flickering candle these few years past. It's the knowledge that the estate will go away, from my pretty birdie, to a man whom I have hated all my life, that tries me. It is like the taste of Dead Sea apples in my mouth."
Hubert drew his chair a little nearer--for he had been bidden to sit.
"If you will pardon me, sir, for saying it, I do not think you ought to take what Dr. Spreckley says for granted. You should have better advice."
"The London doctors have been down once--and they did me no good. They'd not do it now. And there'd be the trouble and expense incurred for nothing."
"I was not thinking of London doctors, sir, but of one nearer home--Dr. Jago."
"Pooh! They say he is a quack."
Hubert Stone bent his head, and talked low and earnestly--describing what he had heard of Dr. Jago's wonderful skill.
"I--I know a little of medicine myself, sir," he added; "sometimes I wish I had been brought up to it, for I believe I have a natural aptitude for the science, and I read medical books, and have been in hospitals; and--and I think, Squire, that a clever practitioner who knows his business could at least keep you alive until next April. Ay, and past it. I almost thinkIcould."
Mr. Denison smiled. The idea of Hubert dabbling in such things tickled him.
"Well, and how would you set about it?" he demanded in pleasant mockery.
Hubert said a few words in a low tone; his voice seemed to grow lower as he continued. He looked strangely in earnest; his face was dark and eager.
"The lad must be mad--to think he could keep me alive by those means!" interrupted the Squire, staring at Hubert from under his shaggy brows, as though he half thought he saw a lunatic before him.
"If you would only let me finish, sir--only listen while I describe the treatment----"
"Pray, did you ever witness the treatment you would describe--and see a life prolonged by it?"
Without directly answering the question, Hubert resumed the argument in his low and eager tones. Gradually the Squire grew interested--perhaps almost unto belief.
"And you could--could doctor me up in this manner, you think!" he exclaimed, lifting his hand and letting it drop again. "Boy, you almost take my breath away."
"Perhaps I could not, sir. But I say Dr. Jago might."
Squire Denison sat thinking, his head bent down.
"Do you know this Dr. Jago?" he presently asked. "Have you met him?"
"Once or twice, sir. And I was struck with an impression of his inward power."
"Well, I--I will see him," decided the Squire. "And if he thinks he can--can keep life in me, I will make it worth his while. Why, lad, I'd give half my fortune, nearly, to be able to will away Heron Dyke out of the clutches of those harpies, who look to inherit it, and who have kept their spies about us here. You may bring this new doctor to me."
A glad light came into Hubert's face: he was at least as anxious as his master that Heron Dyke should not pass to strangers.
"Shall I bring him tomorrow, sir?"
"Ay, tomorrow. Why not? Spreckley will be here at ten; let the other come at noon. But look you here, lad: not a word to him beforehand about this idea of yours, this new--new treatment. I'll see him first."