CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
ORNAMENTAL CAPITAL 'T'
he steamer looked very near now and large. It was plain it had no longer any chance of clearing the rocks. The boatmen were bawling to one another, but I could not understand what they said, nor hear more than a word or two at a time.
The steamer mounted very high, and then seemed to dive headlong into the sea, and was lost to sight. Again, in less than a minute, the black mass was toppling at the summit of the sea, and again it seemed swallowed up.
"Her starboard paddle!" shouted a broad-shouldered sailor in a pilot-coat, with his palm to the side of his mouth.
Thomas Jones was among these men, without a hat, and on seeing me he fell back a little. I was only a step or two behind them.
"Thomas Jones," I screamed, and he inclined his ear to my shrill question, "is there no life-boat in Cardyllion?"
"Not one, miss," he roared; "and it could not make head against that if there was."
"Not an inch," bawled Williams.
"Is there any chance?" I cried.
"An anchor from the starn! A bad hold there—she's draggin' of it!" yelled Williams, whose voice, though little more than two feet away, sounded faint and half smothered in the storm.
Just then the steamer reared, or rather swooped, like the enchanted horse, in the air, and high above its black shape shot a huge canopy of foam; and then it staggered over and down, and nothing but raging sea was there.
"O God! are they all lost?" I shrieked.
"Anchor's fast. All right now," roared the man in the pilot-coat.
In some seconds more the vessel emerged, pitching high into the brilliant moonlight, and nearly the same thing was repeated again and again. The seafaring men who were looking on were shouting their opinions to one another, and from the little I was able to hear and understand, I gathered that she might ride it out if she did not drag her anchor, or "part" or "founder." But the sea was very heavy, and the rocks just under her bows now.
In this state of suspense a quarter of an hour or more must have passed. Suddenly the vessel seemed to rise nearer than before. The men crowded forward to the edge of the bank. It was plain something decisive had happened. Nearer it rose again, and then once more plunged forward and disappeared. I waited breathless. I waited longer than before, and longer. Nothing was there but rolling waves and springing foam beyond the rocks. The ship rose no more!
The first agony of suspense was over. Where she had been the waves were sporting in the ghastly moonlight. In my wild horror I screamed—I wrung my hands. I could not turn for a moment from the scene. I was praying all the time the same short prayer over and over again. Minute after minute passed, and still my eyes were fixed on the point where the ship had vanished; my hands were clasped over my forehead, and tears welled down my cheeks.
What's that? Upon the summit of the bare rock, all on a sudden, the figure of a man appeared; behind this mass of black stone, as each wave burst in succession, the foam leaped in clouds. For a moment the figure was seen sharp against the silvery distance; then he stooped, as if to climb down the near side of the rock, and we lost sight of him. The boatmen shouted, and held up each a hand (their others were holding their hats on) in token of succour near, and three or four of them, with Thomas Jones at their head, ran down the slope, at their utmost speed to the jetty, under which, in shelter, lay the Malory boat. Soon it was moving under the bank, four men pulling might and main against the gale; though they rowed in shelter of the reef, on the pinnacle of which we had seen the figure for a moment, still it was a rough sea, and far from safe for an open boat, the spray driving like hail against them, and the boat pitching heavily in the short cross sea.
No other figure crossed the edge of the rock, or for a a moment showed upon the bleak reef, all along which clouds of foam were springing high and wild into the air.
The men who had been watching the event from the bank, seemed to have abandoned all further hope, and began to descend the hill to the jetty to await the return of the boat. It did return, bearing the one rescued man.
Laura Grey and I went homeward. We made our way into the back-yard, often forced to run, by the storm, in spite of ourselves. We had hardly reached the house when we saw the boatmen coming up.
We were now in the yard, about to enter the house at the back-door, which stood in shelter of the building. I saw Mrs. Torkill in the steward's house, with one of the maids, evidently in a fuss. I ran in.
"Oh, Miss Ethel, dear, did you see that? Lord a'mercy on us! A whole shipful gone like that! I thought the sight was leaving my eyes."
I answered very little. I felt ill, I was trembling still, and ready to burst again into tears.
"Here's bin Thomas Jones, miss, to ask leave for the drownded man to rest himself for the night, and, as Mr. Carmel's away, I knew your papa and mamma would not refuse; don't you think so, miss? So I said, ay, bring him here. Was I right, miss? And me and Anne Wan is tidyin' a bed for him."
"Quite right, I'm sure," said I, my interest again awakened, and almost at the same moment into the flagged passage came Thomas Jones, followed by several of the Cardyllion boatmen, their great shoes clattering over the flags.
In the front rank of these walked the one mortal who had escaped alive from the ship that was now a wreck on the fatal reef. You may imagine the interest with which I looked at him. I saw a graceful but manly figure, a young man in a short sailor-like coat, his dress drenched and clinging, his hat gone, his forehead and features finely formed, very energetic, and, I thought, stern—browned by the sun; but, allowing for that tint, no drowned face in the sea that night was paler than his, his long black hair, lank with sea-water, thrown back from his face like a mane. There was blood oozing from under its folds near his temple; there was blood also on his hand, which rested on the breast of his coat; on his finger there was a thick gold ring. I had little more than a moment in which to observe all this. He walked in, holding his head high, very faint and fierce, with a slight stagger in his gait, a sullen and defiant countenance, and eyes fixed and gazing straight before him, as I had heard somnambulists described. I saw him in the candle-light for only a moment as he walked by, with boatmen in thick shoes, as I said, clattering beside him. I felt a strange longing to run and clasp him by the hand!
I got into our own back-door, and found Laura Grey in the room in which we usually had our tea. She was as much excited as I.
"Could you have imagined," she almost cried, "anything so frightful? I wish I had not seen it. It will always be before my eyes."
"That is what I feel also; but we could not help it, we could not have borne the suspense. That is the reason why the people who are least able to bear it sometimes see the most dreadful sights."
As we were talking, and wondering where the steamer came from, and what was her name, and how many people were probably on board, in came Rebecca Torkill.
"I sent them boatmen home, miss, that rowed the boat out to the rock for that poor young man, with a pint o' strong ale, every one round, and no doubt he'll give them and Thomas Jones something in hand for taking him off the rock when he comes to himself a bit. He ought to be thanking the Almighty with a contrite heart."
"He did not look as if he was going to pray when I saw him," I said.
"Nor to thank God, nor no one, for anything," she chimed in. "And he sat down sulky and black as you please, at the side o' the bed, and said never a word, but stuck out his foot to Thomas Jones to unbutton his boot. I had a pint o' mulled port ready, and I asked him if I should send for the doctor, and he only shook his head and shrugged his shoulders, as he might turn up his nose at an ugly physic. And he fell a-thinking while Jones was takin' off the other boot, and in place of prayin' or thanks-giving, I heard him muttering to himself and grumbling; and, Lord forgive me if I wrong him, I think I heard him cursing some one. There was a thing for a man just took alive out o' the jaws o' death by the mercy o' God to do! There's them on earth, miss, that no lesson will teach, nor goodness melt, nor judgment frighten, but the last one, and then all's too late."
It was late by this time, and so we all got to our beds. But I lay long awake in the dark, haunted by the ceaseless rocking of that dreadful sea, and the apparition of that one pale, bleeding messenger from the ship of death. How unlike my idea of the rapture of a mortal just rescued from shipwreck! His face was that of one to whom an atrocious secret has been revealed, who was full of resentment and horror; whose lips were sealed.
In my eyes he was the most striking figure that had ever appeared before me. And the situation and my own dreadful excitement had elevated him into a hero.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
ORNAMENTAL CAPITAL 'T'
he first thing I heard of the stranger in the morning was that he had sent off early to the proprietor of the "Verney Arms" a messenger with a note for two large boxes which he had left there, when the yacht Foam Bell was at Cardyllion about a fortnight before. The note was signed with the letters R. M.
The Foam Bell had lain at anchor off the pier of Cardyllion for only two hours, so no one in the town knew much about her. Two or three of her men, with Foam Bell across the breasts of their blue shirts and on the ribbons of their flat glazed hats, had walked about the quaint town, and drunk their beer at the "George and Garter." But there had not been time to make acquaintance with the townspeople. It was only known that the yacht belonged to Sir Dives Wharton, and that the gentleman who left the boxes in charge of the proprietor of the "Verney Arms," was not that baronet.
The handwriting was the same as that in the memorandum he had left with the hotel-keeper, and which simply told him that the big black boxes were left to be called or written for by Edward Hathaway, and mentioned no person whose initials were R. M. So Mr. Hughes, of the "Verney Arms," drove to Malory to see the gentleman at the steward's house, and having there recognised him as the very gentleman who left the boxes in his charge, he sent them to him as directed.
Shortly after, Doctor Mervyn, our old friend walked up the avenue, and saw me and Laura at the window.
It was a calm, bright morning; the storm had done its awful work, and was at rest, and sea and sky looked glad and gentle in the brilliant sun. Already about fifty drowned persons had been carried up and laid upon the turf in the churchyard in rows, with their faces upward. I was glad it was upon the slope that was hid from us.
How murderous the dancing waves looked in the sunlight! And the black saw-edged reef I beheld with a start and a shudder. The churchyard, too, had a changed expression. What a spectacle lay behind that familiar grassy curve! I did not see the incongruous muster of death. Here a Liverpool dandy; there a white-whiskered City man; sharp bag-men; little children—strange companions in the churchyard—hard-handed sailors; women, too, in silk or serge—no distinction now.
I and Laura could not walk in that direction till all this direful seeking and finding were over.
The doctor, seeing us at the open window, raised his hat. The autumn sun through the thin leaves touched his bald head as he walked over to the window-stool, and placing his knee on the bench on which Mr. Carmel used sometimes to sit, he told us all he knew of the ship and the disaster. It was a Liverpool steamer called the Conway Castle, bound for Bristol. One of her paddles was disabled early in the gale, and thus she drove to leeward, and was wrecked.
"And now," said the doctor, "I'm going to look in upon the luckiest man in the kingdom, the one human being who escaped alive out of that ship. He must have been either the best or the worst man on board—either too good to be drowned or too bad, by Jove! He is the gentleman you were so kind as to afford shelter to last night in the steward's house there, round the corner, and he sent for me an hour ago. I daresay he feels queer this morning; and from what Thomas Jones says, I should not be surprised if he had broken a bone somewhere. Nothing of any great consequence, of course; but he must have got a thund'ring fling on those rocks. When I've seen him—if I find you here—I'll tell you what I think of him."
After this promise, you may be sure we did wait where we were, and he kept his word. We were in a fever of curiosity; my first question was, "Who is he?"
"I guessed you'd ask that the first moment you could," said the doctor, a little pettishly.
"Why?" said I.
"Because it is the very question I can't answer," he replied. "But I'll tell you all I do know," he continued, taking up his old position at the window, and leaning forward with his head in the room.
Every word the oracle spoke we devoured. I won't tell his story in his language, nor with our interruptions. I will give its substance, and in part its details, as I received them. The doctor was at least as curious as we were.
His patient was up, sitting by the fire, in dressing-gown and slippers, which he had taken with other articles of dress from the box which stood open on the floor. The window-curtain was partly drawn, the room rather dark. He saw the young man with his feet on the fender, seated by the wood fire. His features, as they struck the doctor, were handsome and spirited; he looked ill, with pale cheek and lips, speaking low and smiling.
"I'm Doctor Mervyn," said the doctor, making his bow, and eyeing the stranger curiously.
"Oh! Thanks, Doctor Mervyn! I hope it is not a long way from your house, I am here very ridiculously circumstanced. I should not have had any clothes, if it had not been for a very lucky accident, and for a day or two I shall be totally without money—a mere Robinson Crusoe."
"Oh, that don't matter; I shall be very happy to see after you in the meantime, if there should be anything in my way," answered the doctor, bluntly.
"You are very kind, thanks. This place, they tell me, is called Malory. What Mr. Ware is that to whom it belongs?"
"The Honourable Mr. Ware, brother of Lord H——. He is travelling on the Continent at present with his wife, a great beauty some fifteen years since; and his daughter, his only child, is at present here with her governess."
"Oh, I thought some one said he had two?"
The doctor re-asserted the fact, and for some seconds the stranger looked on the floor abstractedly.
"You wished a word or two of advice, I understand?" interrupted the doctor at length. "You have had a narrow escape, sir—a tremendous escape! You must have been awfully shaken. I don't know how you escaped being smashed on those nasty rocks."
"I am pretty well smashed, I fancy," said the young man.
"That's just what I wanted to ascertain."
"From head to foot, I'm covered with bruises," continued the stranger; "I got off with very few cuts. I have one over my temple, and half-a-dozen here and there, and one here on my wrist; but you need not take any trouble about them—a cut, when I get one, heals almost of itself. A bit of court-plaster is all I require for them, and Mrs. Something, the housekeeper here, has given me some; but I'm rather seedy. I must have swallowed a lot of salt water, I fancy. I've got off very well, though, if it's true all the other people were drowned. It was a devil of a fluke; you'd say I was the luckiest fellow alive, ha, ha, ha! I wish I could think so."
He laughed, a little bitterly.
"There are very few men glad to meet death when it comes," said Doctor Mervyn. "Some think they are fit to die, and some know they are not. You know best, sir, what reason you have to be thankful."
"I'm nothing but bruises and aches all over my body. I'm by no means well, and I've lost all my luggage, and papers, and money, since one o'clock yesterday, when I was flourishing. Two or three such reasons for thankfulness would inevitably finish me."
"All except you were drowned, sir," said the doctor, who was known in Cardyllion as a serious-minded man, a little severely.
"Like so many rats in a trap, poor devils," acquiesced the stranger. "They were hatched down. I was the only passenger on deck. I must have been drowned if I had been among them."
"All those poor fellow-passengers of yours," said Doctor Mervyn, in disgust, "had souls, sir, to be saved."
"I suppose so; but I never saw such an assemblage of snobs in my life. I really think that, except poor Haworth—he insisted it would be ever so much pleasanter than the railway; I did not find it so; he's drowned of course—I assure you, except ourselves, there was not a gentleman among them. And Sparks, he's drowned too, and I've lost the best servant I ever had in my life. But I beg your pardon, I'm wasting your time. Do you think I'm ill?"
He extended his wrist, languidly, to enable the doctor to feel his pulse. The physician suppressed his rising answer with an effort, and made his examination.
"Well, sir, you have had a shock."
"By Jove! I should not wonder," acquiesced the young man, with a sneer.
"And you are a good deal upset, and your contusions are more serious than you seem to fancy. I'll make up a liniment here, and I'll send you down something else that will prevent any tendency to fever; and I suppose you would like to be supplied from the 'Verney Arms.' You must not take any wine stronger than claret for the present, and a light dinner, and if you give me a line, or tell me what name——"
"Oh, they know me there, thanks. I got these boxes from there this morning, and they are to send me everything I require."
The doctor wanted his name. The town of Cardyllion, which was in a ferment, wanted it. Of course he must have the name; a medical practitioner who kept a ledger and sent out accounts, it was part of his business to know his patients' names. How could he stand before the wags of the news-room, if he did not know the name of his own patients—of this one, of all others.
"Oh! put me down as R. M. simply," said the young man.
"But wouldn't it be more—more usual, if you had no objections—a little more at length?" insinuated the doctor.
"Well, yes; put it down a little more at length—say R. R. M. Three letters instead of two."
The doctor, with his head inclined, laughed patiently, and the stranger, seeing him about to return to the attack, said a little petulantly: "You see, doctor, I'm not going to give my very insignificant name here to any one. If your book-keeper had it, every one in the town would know it; and Cardyllion is a place at which idle people turn up, and I have no wish to have my stray friends come up to this place to bother me for the two or three days I must stay here. You may suppose me an escaped convict, or anything else you please that will amuse the good people; but I'm hanged if I give my name, thank you!"
After this little interruption, the strictly professional conversation was resumed, and the doctor ended by directing him to stay quiet that day, and not to walk out out until he had seen him again next morning.
The doctor then began to mix the ingredients of his liniment. The young man in the silk dressing-gown limped to the window, and leaned his arm upon the sash, looking out, and the doctor observed him, in his ruminations, smiling darkly on the ivy that nodded from the opposite wall, as if he saw a confederate eyeing him from its shadow.
"He didn't think I was looking at him," said the doctor; "but I have great faith in a man's smile when he thinks he is all to himself; and that smile I did not like; it was, in my mind, enough to damn him."
All this, when his interview was over, the doctor came round and told us. He was by no means pleased with his patient, and being a religious man, of a quick temper, would very likely have declined the office of physician in this particular case, if he had not thought, judging by his "properties," which were in a certain style that impressed Doctor Mervyn, and his air, and his refined features, and a sort of indescribable superiority which both irritated and awed the doctor, that he might be a "swell."
He went the length, notwithstanding, of calling him, in his conversation with us, an "inhuman puppy," but he remarked that there were certain duties which no Christian could shirk, among which that of visiting the sick held, of course, in the doctor's mind, due rank.
CHAPTER XIII.
ORNAMENTAL CAPITAL 'I'
was a little shy, as country misses are; and, curious as I was, rather relieved when I heard that the shipwrecked stranger had been ordered to keep his quarters strictly, for that day at least. So, by-and-by, as Laura Grey had a letter to write, I put on my hat, and not caring to walk towards the town, and not daring to take the Penruthyn Road, I ran out to the garden. The garden of Malory is one of those monastic enclosures whose fruit-trees have long grown into venerable timber; whose walls are stained by time, and mantled in some places with ivy; where everything has been allowed, time out of mind, to have its own way; where walks are grass-grown, and weeds choke the intervals between old standard pear, and cherry, and apple-trees, and only a little plot of ground is kept in cultivation by a dawdling, desultory man, who carries in his daily basket of vegetables to the cook. There was a really good Ribston-pippin or two in this untidy, but not unpicturesque garden; and these trees were, I need scarcely tell you, a favourite resort of ours.
The gale had nearly stripped the trees of their ruddy honours, and thrifty Thomas Jones had, no doubt, carried the spoil away to store them in the apple-closet. One pippin only dangled still within reach, and I was whacking at this particularly good-looking apple with a long stick, but as yet in vain, when I suddenly perceived that a young man, whom I recognised as the very hero of the shipwreck, was approaching. He walked slowly and a little lame, and was leaning on a stick. He was smiling, and, detected in my undignified and rather greedy exercise—I had been jumping from the ground—I was ready to sink into the earth with shame. Perhaps, if I had been endowed with presence of mind, I should have walked away. But I was not, on that occasion at least; and I stood my ground, stick in hand, affecting not to see his slow advance.
It was a soft sunny day. He had come out without a hat; he had sent to Cardyllion to procure one, and had not yet got it, as he afterwards told me, with an apology for seeming to make himself so very much at home. How he introduced himself I forget; I was embarrassed and disconcerted; I know that he thanked me very much for my "hospitality," called me his "hostess," smiling, and told me that, although he did not know my father, he yet saw him everywhere during the season. Then he talked of the wreck; he described his own adventures very interestingly, and spoke of the whole thing in terms very different from those reported by Doctor Mervyn, and with a great deal of feeling. He asked me if I had seen anything of it from our house; and then it became my turn to speak. I very soon got over my shyness; he was so perfectly well-bred that it was impossible, even for a rustic such as I was, not to feel very soon quite at her ease in his company.
So I talked away, becoming more animated; and he smiled, looking at me, I thought, with a great deal of sympathy, and very much pleased. I thought him very handsome. He had one point of resemblance to Mr. Carmel. His face was pale, but, unlike his, as dark as a gipsy's. Its tint showed the white of his eyes and his teeth with fierce effect. What was the character of the face I saw now? Very different from the death-like phantom that had crossed my sight the night before. It was a face of passion and daring. A broad, low forehead, and resolute mouth, with that pronounced under-jaw which indicates sternness and decision. I contrasted him secretly with Mr. Carmel. But in his finely-cut features, and dark, fierce eyes, the ascetic and noble interest of the sadder face was wanting; but there was, for so young a person as I, a different and a more powerful fascination in the beauty of this young man of the world.
Before we parted I allowed him to knock down the apple I had been trying at, and this rustic service improved our acquaintance.
I began to think, however, that our interview had lasted quite long enough; so I took my leave, and I am certain he would have accompanied me to the house, had I not taken advantage of his lameness, and walked away very quickly.
As I let myself out at the garden-door, in turning I was able, unsuspected, to steal a parting look, and I saw him watching me intently as he leaned against the stem of a gigantic old pear-tree. It was rather pleasant to my vanity to think that I had made a favourable impression upon the interesting stranger.
Next day our guest met me again, near the gate of the avenue, as I was returning to the house.
"I had a call this morning from your clergyman," he said. "He seems a very kind old gentleman, the rector of Cardyllion; and the day is so beautiful, he proposed a sail upon the estuary, and if you were satisfied with him, by way of escort, and my steering—I'm an old sailor—I'm sure you'd find it just the day to enjoy a little boating."
He looked at me, smiling eagerly.
Laura Grey and I had agreed that nothing would tempt us to go upon the water, until all risk of lighting upon one of those horrible discoveries from the wreck, that were now beginning to come to the surface from hour to hour, was quite over. So I made our excuses as best I could, and told him that since the storm we had a horror of sailing. He looked vexed and gloomy. He walked beside me.
"Oh! I understand—Miss Grey? I was not aware—I ought, of course, to have included her. Perhaps your friend would change her mind and induce you to reconsider your decision. It is such a charming day."
I thanked him again, but our going was quite out of the question. He smiled and bowed a little, but looked very much chagrined. I fancied that he thought I meant to snub him, for proposing any such thing on so very slight an acquaintance. I daresay if I had I should have been quite right; but you must remember how young I was, and how unlearned in the world's ways. Nothing, in fact, was further from my intention. To soften matters a little, I said:
"I am very sorry we can't go. We should have liked it, I am sure, so much; but it is quite impossible."
He walked all the way to the hall-door with me; and then he asked if I did not intend continuing my walk a little. I bid him good-bye, however, and went in, very full of the agreeable idea that I had made a conquest.
Laura Grey and I, walking to Cardyllion, met Doctor Mervyn, who stopped to tell us that he had just seen his Malory patient, "R. R. M.," steering Williams's boat, with the old vicar on board.
"By Jove! one would have fancied he had got enough of the water for some time to come," remarked the doctor, in conclusion. "That is the most restless creature I ever encountered in all my professional experience! If he had kept himself quiet yesterday and to-day, he'd have been pretty nearly right by to-morrow; but if he goes on like this I should not wonder if he worked himself into a fever."
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
ORNAMENTAL CAPITAL 'N'
ext morning, at about nine o'clock, whom do I see but the restless stranger, to my surprise, again upon the avenue as I return towards the house. I had run down to the gate before breakfast to meet our messenger, and learn whether any letters had come by the post. He, like myself, has come out before his breakfast. He turns on meeting me, and walks towards the house at my side. Never was man more persistent. He had got Williams's boat again, and not only the vicar, but the vicar's wife, was coming for a sail; surely I would venture with her? I was to remember, besides, that they were to sail to the side of the estuary furthest from the wreck; there could be no possible danger there of what I feared—and thus he continued to argue and entreat.
I really wished to go. I said, however, that I must ask Miss Grey, whom, upon some excuse which I now forget, he regretted very much he could not invite to come also. I had given him a conditional promise by the time we parted at the hall-door, and Laura saw no objection to my keeping it, provided old Mrs. Jermyn, the vicar's wife, were there to chaperon me. We were to embark from the Malory jetty, and she was to call for me at about three o'clock.
The shipwrecked stranger left me, evidently very well pleased. When he got into his quarters in the steward's house and found himself all alone, I dare say his dark face gleamed with the smile of which Doctor Mervyn had formed so ill an opinion. I had not yet seen that smile. Heaven help me! I have had reason to remember it.
Laura and I were sitting together, when who should enter the room but Mr. Carmel. I stood up and shook hands. I felt very strangely. I was glad the room was a dark one. I was less observed, and therefore less embarrassed.
It was not till he had been in the room some time that I observed how agitated he looked. He seemed also very much dejected, and from time to time sighed heavily. I saw that something had gone strangely wrong. It was a vague suspense. I was secretly very much frightened.
He would not sit down. He said he had not a moment to stay; and yet he lingered on, I fancied, debating something within himself. He was distrait, and, I thought, irresolute.
After a little talk he said:
"I came just to look in on my old quarters and see my old friends for a few minutes, and then I must disappear again for more than a month, and I find a gentleman in possession."
We hastened to assure him that we had not expected him home for some time, and that the stranger was admitted but for a few days. We told him, each contributing something to the narrative, all about the shipwreck, and the reception of the forlorn survivor in the steward's house.
He listened without a word of comment, almost without breathing, and with his eyes fixed in deep attention on the floor.
"Has he made your acquaintance?" he asked, raising them to me.
"He introduced himself to me," I answered, "but Miss Grey has not seen him."
Something seemed to weigh heavily upon his mind.
"What is your father's present address?" he asked.
I told him, and he made a note of it in his pocket-book. He stood up now, and did at length take his leave.
"I am going to ask you to do a very kind thing. You have heard of sealed orders, not to be opened till a certain point has been reached in a voyage or a march? Will you promise, until I shall have left you fully five minutes, not to open this letter?"
I almost thought he was jesting, but I perceived very quickly that he was perfectly serious. Laura Grey looked at him curiously, and gave him the desired promise as she received the note. His carriage was at the door, and in another minute he was driving rapidly down the avenue. What had led to these odd precautions?—and what had they to do with the shipwrecked stranger?
At about eleven o'clock—that is to say, about ten minutes before Mr. Carmel's visit to us—the stranger had been lying on a sofa in his quarters, with two ancient and battered novels from Austin's Library in Cardyllion, when the door opened unceremoniously, and Mr. Carmel, in travelling costume, stepped into the room. The hall-door was standing open, and Mr. Carmel, on alighting from his conveyance, had walked straight in without encountering any one in the hall. On seeing an intruder in possession he stopped short; the gentleman on the sofa, interrupted, turned towards the door. Thus confronted, each stared at the other.
"Ha! Marston," exclaimed the ecclesiastic, with a startled frown, and an almost incredulous stare.
"Edwyn! by Jove!" responded the stranger, with a rather anxious smile, which faded, however, in a moment.
"What on earth brings you here?" said Mr. Carmel, sternly, after a silence of some seconds.
"What the devil brings you here?" inquired the stranger, almost at the same moment. "Who sent you? What is the meaning of it?"
Mr. Carmel did not approach him. He stood where he had first seen him, and his looks darkened.
"You are the last man living I should have looked for here," said he.
"I suppose we shall find out what we mean by-and-by," said Marston, cynically; "at present I can only tell you that when I saw you I honestly thought a certain old gentleman, I don't mean the devil, had sent you in search of me."
Carmel looked hard at him. "I've grown a very dull man since I last saw you, and I don't understand a joke as well as I once did," said he; "but if you are serious you cannot have learnt that this house has been lent to me by Mr. Ware, its owner, for some months at least; and these, I suppose, are your things? There is not room to put you up here."
"I didn't want to come. I am the famous man you may have read of in the papers—quite unique—the man who escaped alive from the Conway Castle. No Christian refuses shelter to the shipwrecked; and you are a Christian, though an odd one."
Edwyn Carmel looked at him for some seconds in silence.
"I am still puzzled," he said. "I don't know whether you are serious; but, in any case, there's a good hotel in the town—you can go there."
"Thank you—without a shilling," laughed the young man, a little wickedly.
"A word from me will secure you credit there."
"But I'm in the doctor's hands, don't you see?"
"It is nothing very bad," answered Mr. Carmel; "and you will be nearer the doctor there."
The stranger, sitting up straight, replied:
"I suppose I shall; but the doctor likes a walk, and I don't wish him a bit nearer."
"But this is, for the time being, my house, and you must go," replied Edwyn Carmel, coldly and firmly.
"It is also my house, for the time being; for Miss Ware has given me leave to stay here."
The ecclesiastic's lips trembled, and his pale face grew paler, as he stared on the young man for a second or two in silence.
"Marston," he said, "I don't know, of all men, why you should specially desire to pain me."
"Why, hang it! Why should I wish to pain you, Edwyn? I don't. But I have no notion of this sort of hectoring. The idea of your turning me out of the—my house—the house they have lent me! I told you I didn't want to come here; and now I don't want to go away, and I won't."
The churchman looked at him, as if he strove to read his inmost thoughts.
"You know that your going to the hotel could involve no imaginable trouble," urged Edwyn Carmel.
"Go to the hotel yourself, if you think it so desirable a place. I am satisfied with this, and I shall stay here."
"What can be the motive of your obstinacy?"
"Ask that question of yourself, Mr. Carmel, and you may possibly obtain an answer," replied the stranger.
The priest looked again at him, in stern doubt.
"I don't understand your meaning," he said, at last.
"I thought my meaning pretty plain. I mean that I rather think our motives are identical."
"Honestly, Marston, I don't understand you," said Mr. Carmel, after another pause.
"Well, it is simply this: that I think Miss Ware a very interesting young lady, and I like being near her—don't you?"
The ecclesiastic flushed crimson; Marston laughed contemptuously.
"I have been away for more than a month," said the priest, a little paler, looking up angrily; "and I leave this to-day for as long a time again."
"Conscious weakness! Weakness of that sentimental kind sometimes runs in families," said the stranger with a sneer. It was plain that the stranger was very angry; the taunt was wicked, and, whatever it meant, stung Mr. Carmel visibly. He trembled, with a momentary quiver, as if a nerve had been pierced.
There was a silence, during which Mr. Carmel's little French clock over the chimney-piece, punctually wound every week by old Rebecca, might be heard sharply tick, tick, ticking.
"I shall not be deterred by your cruel tongue," said he, very quietly, at length, with something like a sob, "from doing my duty."
"Your duty! Of course, it is always duty; jealousy is quite unknown to a man in holy orders. But there is a difference. You can't tell me the least what I'm thinking of; you always suppose the worst of every one. Your duty! And what, pray, is your duty?"
"To warn Miss Ware and her governess," he answered promptly.
"Warn her of what?" said the stranger, sternly.
"Warn her that a villain has got into this house."
The interesting guest sprang to his feet, with his fists clenched. But he did not strike. He hesitated, and then he said:
"Look here; I'll not treat you as I would a man. You wish me to strike you, you Jesuit, and to get myself into hot water. But I shan't make a fool of myself. I tell you what I'll do with you—if you dare to injure me in the opinion of any living creature, by one word of spoken or hinted slander, I'll make it a police-office affair; and I'll bring out the whole story you found it on; and we'll see which suffers most, you or I, when the world hears it. And now, Mr. Carmel, you're warned. And you know I'm a fellow that means what he says."
Mr. Carmel turned with a pale face, and left the room.
I wonder what the stranger thought. I have often pondered over that scene; and, I believe, he really thought that Mr. Carmel would not, on reflection, venture to carry out his threat.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
ORNAMENTAL CAPITAL 'W'
e had heard nothing of Mr. Carmel's arrival. He had not passed our windows, but drove up instead by the back avenue; and now he was gone, and there remained no record of his visit but the letter which Laura held in her fingers, while we both examined it on all sides, and turned it over. It was directed, "To Miss Ware and Miss Grey. Malory." And when we opened it we read these words:
"Dear Young Ladies,—I know a great deal of the gentleman who has been permitted to take up his residence in the house adjoining Malory. It is enough for me to assure you that no acquaintance could be much more objectionable and unsafe, especially for young ladies living alone as you do. You cannot, therefore, exercise too much caution in repelling any advances he may make.—Your true friend,E. Carmel."
"Dear Young Ladies,—I know a great deal of the gentleman who has been permitted to take up his residence in the house adjoining Malory. It is enough for me to assure you that no acquaintance could be much more objectionable and unsafe, especially for young ladies living alone as you do. You cannot, therefore, exercise too much caution in repelling any advances he may make.—
Your true friend,E. Carmel."
The shock of reading these few words prevented my speaking for some seconds. I had perfect confidence in Mr. Carmel's warning. I was very much frightened. And the vagueness of his language made it the more alarming. The same thoughts struck us both. What fools we were! How is he to be got out of the house? Whom have we to advise with? What is to be done?
In our first panic we fancied that we had got a burglar or an assassin under our roof. Mr. Carmel's letter, however, on consideration, did not bear out quite so violent a conclusion. We resolved, of course, to act upon that letter; and I blamed myself too late for having permitted the stranger to make, even in so slight a way, my acquaintance.
In great trepidation, I despatched a note to Mrs. Jermyn, to say I could not join her boating party. To the stranger I could send neither note nor message. It did not matter. He would, of course, meet that lady at the jetty, and there learn my resolve. Two o'clock arrived. Old Rebecca came in, and told us that the gentleman in the steward's house had asked her whether Mr. Carmel was gone; and on learning that he had actually driven away, hardly waited till she was out of the room "to burst out a-laughing," and talking to himself, and laughing like mad.
"And I don't think, with his laughing and cursing, he's like a man should be that fears God, and is only a day or two out of the jaws of death!"
This description increased our nervousness. Possibly this person was a lunatic, whose keeper had been drowned in the Conway Castle. There was no solution of the riddle which Mr. Carmel had left us to read, however preposterous, that we did not try; none possible, that was not alarming.
About an hour after, passing through the hall, I saw some one, I thought, standing outside, near the window that commands the steps beside the door. This window has a wire-blind, through which, from outside, it is impossible to see. From within, however, looking towards the light, you can see perfectly. I scarcely thought our now distrusted guest would presume to approach our door so nearly; but there he was. He had mounted the steps, I suppose, with the intention of knocking, but he was, instead, looking stealthily from behind the great elm that grows close beside; his hand was leaning upon its trunk, and his whole attention absorbed in watching some object which, judging from the direction of his gaze, must have been moving upon the avenue. I could not take my eyes off him. He was frowning, with compressed lips and eyes dilated; his attitude betokened caution, and as I looked he smiled darkly.
I recovered my self-possession. I took, directly, Doctor Mervyn's view of that very peculiar smile. I was suddenly frightened. There was nothing to prevent the formidable stranger from turning the handle of the door and letting himself into the hall. Two or three light steps brought me to the door, and I instantly bolted it. Then drawing back a little into the hall, I looked again through the window, but the intending visitor was gone.
Who had occupied his gaze the moment before? And what had determined the retreat? It flashed upon me suddenly again that he might be one of those persons who are described as "being known to the police," and that Mr. Carmel had possibly sent constables to arrest him.
I waited breathlessly at the window, to see what would come of it. In a minute more, from the direction in which I had been looking for a party of burly policemen, there arrived only my fragile friend, Laura Grey, who had walked down the road to see whether Mr. and Mrs. Jermyn were coming.
Encouraged by this reinforcement, I instantly opened the hall-door, and looked boldly out. The enemy had completely disappeared.
"Did you see him?" I exclaimed.
"See whom?" she asked.
"Come in quickly," I answered. And when I had shut the hall-door, and again bolted it, I continued. "The man in the steward's house. He was on the steps this moment."
"No, I did not see him; but I was not looking towards the hall-door. I was looking up at the trees, counting the broken boughs—there are thirteen trees injured on the right hand, as you come up."
"Well, I vote we keep the door bolted; he shan't come in here," said I. "This is the second siege you and I have stood together in this house. I do wish Mr. Carmel had been a little more communicative, but I scarcely think he would have been so unfriendly as to leave us quite to ourselves if he had thought him a highwayman, and certainly, if he is one, he is a very gentleman-like robber."
"I think he can merely have meant, as he says, to warn us against making his acquaintance," said Miss Grey; "his letter says only that."
"I wish Mr. Carmel would stay about home," I said, "or else that the steward's house were locked up."
I suppose all went right about the boating party, and that Mrs. Jermyn got my note in good time.
No one called at Malory; the dubious stranger did not invade our steps again. We had constant intelligence of his movements from Rebecca Torkill; and there was nothing eccentric or suspicious about them, so far as we could learn.
Another evening passed, and another morning came; no letter by the post, Rebecca hastened to tell us, for our involuntary guest; a certain sign, she conjectured, that we were to have him for another day. Till money arrived he could not, it was plain, resume his journey.
Doctor Mervyn told us, with his customary accuracy and plenitude of information respecting other people's affairs, when he looked in upon us, after his visit to his patient, that he had posted a letter the morning after his arrival, addressed to Lemuel Blount, Esquire, 5, Brunton Street, Regent's Park; and that on reference to the London Directory, in the news-room, it was duly ascertained by the subscribers that "Blount, Lemuel," was simply entered as "Esquire," without any further clue whatsoever to guide an active-minded and inquiring community to a conclusion. So there, for the present, Doctor Mervyn's story ended.
Our panic by this time was very much allayed. The unobtrusive conduct of the unknown, ever since his momentary approach to our side of the house, had greatly contributed to this. I could not submit to a blockade of any duration; so we took heart of grace, and ventured to drive in the little carriage to Cardyllion, where we had some shopping to do.