CHAPTER III.
“A deadly silence step by step increased,Until it seemed a horrid presence there.”
“A deadly silence step by step increased,Until it seemed a horrid presence there.”
“A deadly silence step by step increased,Until it seemed a horrid presence there.”
“A deadly silence step by step increased,
Until it seemed a horrid presence there.”
That idea of the Strangways had taken hold of the bride’s fancy. She went into the hall with Godfrey after dinner, and they looked together at the family group. The picture was a bishop’s half-length, turned lengthwise, and the figures showed only the head and shoulders. The girl stood between the two boys, her left arm round her younger brother’s neck. He was a lad of eleven or twelve, in an Eton jacket and broad white collar. The other boy was older than the girl, and was dressed in dark green corduroy. The heads were masterly, but the picture was uninteresting.
“Did you ever see three faces with so little fascination among the three?” asked Godfrey. “The boys look arrant cubs; the girl has the makings of a handsome woman, but the lines of her mouth andchin have firmness enough for forty, and yet she could hardly have been over fifteen when that picture was painted.”
“She has a lovely throat and lovely shoulders.”
“Yes, the painter has made the most of those.”
“And she has fine eyes.”
“Fine as to colour and shape, but as cold as a Toledo blade—and as dangerous. I pity her husband.”
“That must be a waste of pity. If he had been good to her she would not have run away from him.”
“I am not sure of that. A woman with that mouth and chin would go her own gate if she trampled upon bleeding hearts. I wonder your father keeps these shadows of a vanished race.”
“He would not part with them for worlds. They are like the peacock’s feathers that hewillbring indoors. I sometimes think he has a fancy for unlucky things. He says that as we have no ancestors of our own—to speak of—I suppose we musthaveancestors, for everybody must have come down from Adam somehow——”
“Naturally, or from Adam’s ancestor, the common progenitor of the Darwinian thesis.”
“Don’t be horrid. Father’s idea is that as we have no ancestors of our own, we may as well keep the Strangway portraits. The faces are the history of the house, father said, when mother wanted those dismal old pictures taken down to make way for a collection of modern art. So there they are, and I can’t help thinking that theyoverlookus.”
They were still standing before the trio of young faces contemplatively.
“Are theyalldead?” asked Juanita, after a pause.
“God knows. I believe it is a long time since any of them were heard of. Jasper Blake talks to me about them sometimes. He was in service here, you know, before he became my father’s bailiff. In fact, he only left Cheriton after the old squire’s death. He is fond of talking of the forgotten race, and it is from him that most of my information is derived. He told me about that unlucky lad,”—pointing to the younger boy. “He was in the navy, distinguished himself out in China, and was on the high road to getting a ship when he got broke for drunkenness—a flagrant case, which all but ended in a tremendous disaster and the burning of a man-of-war. He went into the merchant service—did well for a year or two, and then the old enemy took hold of him again, and he got brokethere. After that he dropped through—disappeared in the great dismal swamp where the men who fail in this world sink out of knowledge.”
“And the elder boy; what became of him?”
“He was in the army—a tremendous swell, I believe,—married Lord Dangerfield’s youngest daughter, and cut a dash for two or three years, and then disappeared from society, and took his wife to Corsica, on the ground of delicate health. For anything I know tothe contrary they may still be living in that free-and-easy little island. He was fond of sport, and liked a rough life. I fancy that Ajaccio would suit him better than Purbeck or Pall Mall.”
“Poor things; I wonder if they ever long for Cheriton?”
“If old Jasper is to be believed, they were passionately fond of the place, especially that girl. Jasper was groom in those days, and he taught her to ride. She was a regular dare-devil, according to his account, with a temper that no one had ever been able to control. But she seems to have behaved pretty well to Jasper, and he was attached to her. Her father couldn’t manage her anyhow. They were too much alike. He sent her to a school at Lausanne soon after that picture was painted, and she never came back to Cheriton. She ran away with an English officer who was home from India on furlough, and was staying at Ouchy for his health. She represented herself as of full age, and contrived to get married at Geneva. The squire refused ever to see her or her husband. She ran away from the husband afterwards, as I told you. In fact, to quote Jasper, she was an incorrigible bolter.”
“Poor, poor thing. It is all too sad,” sighed Juanita. “Let us go into the library and forget them. There are no Strangways there, thank Heaven.”
She put her arm through Godfrey’s and led him off, unresisting. He was in that stage of devotion in which he followed her like a dog.
The library was one of the best rooms in the house, but the least interesting from an archæologist’s point of view. It had been built early in the eighteenth century for a ball-room, a long narrow room, with five tall windows, and it had been afterwards known as the music-room; but James Dalbrook had improved it out of its original character by throwing out a large bay, with three windows opening on to a semi-circular terrace, with marble balustrade and steps leading down to the prettiest portion of that Italian garden which was the crowning glory of Cheriton Manor, and which it had been Lord Cheriton’s delight to improve. The spacious bay gave width and dignity to the room, and it was in the space between the bay and the fireplace that people naturally grouped themselves. It was too large a room to be warmed by one fire of ordinary dimensions, but the fireplace added by James Dalbrook was of abnormal width and grandeur, while the chimney-piece was rich in coloured marbles and massive sculpture. The room was lined with books from floor to ceiling. Clusters of wax candles were burning on the mantelpiece, and two large moderator lamps stood on a massive carved oak table in the centre of the room—a table spacious enough to hold all the magazines, reviews, and periodicals in three languages that were worth reading—Quarterlies,Revue des Deux Mondes,Rundschau,Figaro,World,Saturday,Truth, and the rest of them—as well as guide-books, peerages, clergy and army lists—which made a formidable range in the middle.
Godfrey flung himself into a long, low, arm-chair, and Juanita perched herself lightly beside him on the cushioned arm, looking down at him from that point of vantage. There was a wood fire here as well as in the hall; but the rain was over now, the evening had grown warmer, and the French windows in the bay stood open to the dull grey night.
“What are you reading now, Godfrey?” asked Juanita, glancing at the cosy double table in a corner by the chimney-piece, loaded with books above and below.
“For duty reading Jones’ book on ‘Grattan and the Irish Parliament;’ for old books ‘Plato;’ for new ‘Wider Horizons.’”
He was an insatiable reader, and even in those long summer days of honeymoon bliss he had felt the need of books, which were a habit of his life.
“Is ‘Wider Horizons’ a good book?”
“It is full of imagination, and it carries one away; but one has the same feeling as in ‘Esoteric Buddhism.’ It is a very comforting theory, and it ought to be true; but by what authority is this gospel preached to us, and on what evidence are we to believe?”
“‘Wider Horizons’ is about the life to come?”
“Yes; it gives us a very vivid picture of our existence in other planets. The author writes as if he had been there.”
“And according to this theory you and I are to meet and be happy again in some distant star?”
“In many stars—climbing from star to star, and achieving a higher spirituality, a finer essence, with every new existence, until we attain the everlasting perfection.”
“And we who are to die old and worn out here are to be young and bright again there—in our next world?”
“Naturally.”
“And then we shall grow old again—go through the same slow decay—grey hairs, fading sight, duller hearing?”
“Yes; as we blossom so must we fade. The withered husk of the old life holds the seed from which the new flower must spring; and with every incarnation the flower is to gain in vigour and beauty, and the life period is to lengthen till it touches infinity.”
“I must read the book, Godfrey. It may be all a dream; but I love even dreams that promise a future in which you and I shall always be together—as we are now, as we are now.”
She repeated those last four words with infinite tenderness. The beautiful head sank down to nestle upon his shoulder, and they were silent for some minutes in a dreamy reverie, gazing into the fire, where the logs had given out their last flame, and were slowly fading from red to grey.
It was a quarter to eleven by the dial let into the marble of the chimney-piece. The butler had brought a tray with wine and water at ten o’clock, and had taken the final orders before retiring.Juanita and her husband were alone amid the stillness of the sleeping household. The night was close and dull, not a leaf stirring, and only a few dim stars in the heavy sky.
As the clock told the third quarter with a small silvery chime, as if it were a town clock in fairyland, Juanita started suddenly from her half-reclining position, and listened intently, with her face towards the open window.
“A footstep!” she exclaimed. “I heard a footstep on the terrace.”
“My dearest, I know your hearing is quicker than mine; but this time it is your fancy that heard and not your ears. I heard nothing. And who should be walking on the terrace at such an hour, do you suppose?”
“I don’t suppose anything about it, but I know there was some one. I heard the steps, Godfrey. I heard them as distinctly as I heard you speak just now; light footsteps—slow, very slow, and with that cautious, treacherous sound which light, slow footsteps always have, if one hears them in the silence of night.”
“You are very positive.”
“I know it, I heard it!” she cried, running to the window, and out into the grey night.
She ran along the whole length of the terrace and back again, her husband following her with slower steps, and they found no one, heard nothing from one end to the other.
“You see, love, there was no one there,” said Godfrey.
“I see nothing of the kind—only that the some one who was there has vanished very cleverly. An eavesdropper might hide easily enough behind any one of those cypresses,” she said, pointing to the obelisk-shaped trees which showed black against the dim grey of the night.
“Why should there be any eavesdropper, love? What secrets have you and I that any prowler should care to watch or listen. The only person of the prowling kind to be apprehended would be a burglar; and as Cheriton has been burglar-free all these years, I see no reason for fear; so, unless your mysterious footfall belonged to one of the servants or a servant’s follower, which is highly improbable on this side of the house, I take it that you must have heard a ghost.”
He had his arm around her, and was leading her out of the misty night into the warm, bright room, and his voice had the light sound of laughter; but at that word ghost she started and trembled, and her voice was very serious as she answered—
“A ghost, yes! It was justlikethe footfall of a ghost—so slow, so soft, so mysterious. I believe it was a ghost, Godfrey—a Strangway ghost. Some of themmustrevisit this house.”