'I dare say,' said Wylder, with a sneer, 'he was asking affectionately for me, eh?'
'No; not that I recollect—in fact there was not time; but I suppose he does not like you less for what has happened; you're worth cultivating now, you know.'
Wylder was leaning on his elbow, with just the tip of his thumb to his teeth, with a vicious character of biting it, which was peculiar to him when anything vexed him considerably, and glancing sharply this way and that—
'You know,' he said, suddenly, 'we are a sort of cousins; his mother was a Brandon—a second cousin of Dorcas's—no, of her father's—I don't know exactly how. He's a pushing fellow, one of the coolest hands I know; but I don't see that I can be of any use to him, or why the devil I should. I say, old fellow, come out and have a weed, will you?'
I raised my eyes. Miss Brandon had left the room. I don't know that her presence would have prevented his invitation, for Wylder's wooing was certainly of the coolest. So forth we sallied, and under the autumnal foliage, in the cool amber light of the declining evening, we enjoyed our cheroots; and with them, Wylder his thoughts; and I, the landscape, and the whistling of the birds; for we waxed Turkish and taciturn over our tobacco.
I believe the best rule in telling a story is to follow events chronologically. So let me mention that just about the time when Wylder and I were filming the trunks of the old trees with wreaths of lingering perfume, Miss Rachel Lake had an unexpected visitor.
There is, near the Hall, a very pretty glen, called Redman's Dell, very steep, with a stream running at the bottom of it, but so thickly wooded that in summer time you can only now and then catch a glimpse of the water gliding beneath you. Deep in this picturesque ravine, buried among the thick shadows of tall old trees, runs the narrow mill-road, which lower down debouches on the end of the village street. There, in the transparent green shadow, stand the two mills—the old one with A.D. 1679, and the Wylder arms, and the eternal 'resurgam' projecting over its door; and higher up, on a sort of platform, the steep bank rising high behind it, with its towering old wood overhanging and surrounding, upon a site where one of king Arthur's knights, of an autumn evening, as he rode solitary in quest of adventures, might have seen the peeping, gray gable of an anchorite's chapel dimly through the gilded stems, and heard the drowsy tinkle of his vesper-bell, stands an old and small two-storied brick and timber house; and though the sun does not very often glimmer on its windows, it yet possesses an air of sad, old-world comfort—a little flower-garden lies in front with a paling round it. But not every kind of flowers will grow there, under the lordly shadow of the elms and chestnuts.
This sequestered tenement bears the name of Redman's Farm; and its occupant was that Miss Lake whom I had met last night at Brandon Hall, and whose pleasure it was to live here in independent isolation.
There she is now, busy in her tiny garden, with the birds twittering about her, and the yellow leaves falling; and her thick gauntlets on her slender hands. How fresh and pretty she looks in that sad, sylvan solitude, with the background of the dull crimson brick and the climbing roses. Bars of sunshine fall through the branches above, across the thick tapestry of blue, yellow, and crimson, that glow so richly upon their deep green ground.
There is not much to be done just now, I fancy, in the gardening way; but work is found or invented—for sometimes the hour is dull, and that bright, spirited, and at heart, it may be, bitter exile, will make out life somehow. There is music, and drawing. There are flowers, as we see, and two or three correspondents, and walks into the village; and her dark cousin, Dorcas, drives down sometimes in the pony-carriage, and is not always silent; and indeed, they are a good deal together.
This young lady's little Eden, though overshadowed and encompassed with the solemn sylvan cloister of nature's building, and vocal with sounds of innocence—the songs of birds, and sometimes those of its young mistress—was no more proof than the Mesopotamian haunt of our first parents against the intrusion of darker spirits. So, as she worked, she lifted up her eyes, and beheld a rather handsome young man standing at the little wicket of her garden, with his gloved hand on the latch. A man of fashion—a town man—his dress bespoke him: smooth cheeks, light brown curling moustache, and eyes very peculiar both in shape and colour, and something of elegance of finish in his other features, and of general grace in thecoup d'oeil, struck one at a glance. He was smiling silently and slily on Rachel, who, with a little cry of surprise, said—
'Oh, Stanley! is it you?'
And before he could answer, she had thrown her arms about his neck and kissed him two or three times. Laughingly, half-resisting, the young man waited till her enthusiastic salutation was over, and with one gloved hand caressingly on her shoulder, and with the other smoothing his ruffled moustache, he laughed a little more, a quiet low laugh. He was not addicted to stormy greetings, and patted his sister's shoulder gently, his arm a little extended, like a man who tranquillises a frolicsome pony.
'Yes, Radie, you see I've found you out;' and his eye wandered, still smiling oddly, over the front of her quaint habitation.
'And how have you been, Radie?'
'Oh, very well. No life like a gardener's—early hours, work, air, and plenty of quiet.' And the young lady laughed.
'You are a wonderful lass, Radie.'
'Thank you, dear.'
'And what do you call this place?'
'"The Happy Valley,"Icall it. Don't you remember "Rasselas?"'
'No,' he said, looking round him; 'I don't think I was ever there.'
'You horrid dunce!—it's a book, but a stupid one—so no matter,' laughed Miss Rachel, giving him a little slap on the shoulder with her slender fingers.
His reading, you see, lay more in circulating library lore, and he was not deep in Johnson—as few of us would be, I'm afraid, if it were not for Boswell.
'It's a confounded deal more like the "Valley of the Shadow of Death," in "Pilgrim's Progress"—you remember—that old Tamar used to read to us in the nursery,' replied Master Stanley, who had never enjoyed being quizzed by his sister, not being blessed with a remarkably sweet temper.
'If you don't like my scenery, come in, Stanley, and admire my decorations. You must tell me all the news, and I'll show you my house, and amaze you with my housekeeping. Dear me, how long it is since I've seen you.'
So she led him in by the arm to her tiny drawing-room; and he laid his hat and stick, and gray paletot, on her little marquetrie-table, and sat down, and looked languidly about him, with a sly smile, like a man amused.
'It is an odd fancy, living alone here.'
'An odd necessity, Stanley.'
'Aren't you afraid of being robbed and murdered, Radie?' he said, leaning forward to smell at the pretty bouquet in the little glass, and turning it listlessly round. 'There are lots of those burglar fellows going about, you know.'
'Thank you, dear, for reminding me. But, somehow, I'm not the least afraid. There hasn't been a robbery in this neighbourhood, I believe, for eight hundred years. The people never think of shutting their doors here in summer time till they are going to bed, and then only for form's sake; and, beside, there's nothing to rob, and I really don't much mind being murdered.'
He looked round, and smiled on, as before, like a man contemptuously amused, but sleepily withal.
'You are very oddly housed, Radie.'
'I like it,' she said quietly, also with a glance round her homely drawing-room.
'What do you call this, your boudoir or parlour?'
'I call it my drawing-room, but it's anything you please.'
'What very odd people our ancestors were,' he mused on. 'They lived, I suppose, out of doors like the cows, and only came into their sheds at night, when they could not see the absurd ugliness of the places they inhabited. I could not stand upright in this room with my hat on. Lots of rats, I fancy, Radie, behind that wainscoting? What's that horrid work of art against the wall?'
'A shell-work cabinet, dear. It is not beautiful, I allow. If I were strong enough, or poor old Tamar, I should have put it away; and now that you're here, Stanley, I think I'll make you carry it out to the lobby for me.'
'I should not like to touch it, dear Radie. And pray how do you amuse yourself here? How on earth do you get over the day, and, worse still, the evenings?'
'Very well—well enough. I make a very good sort of a nun, and a capital housemaid. I work in the garden, I mend my dresses, I drink tea, and when I choose to be dissipated, I play and sing for old Tamar—why did not you ask how she is? I do believe, Stanley, you care for no one, but' (she was going to say yourself, she said instead, however, but) 'perhaps, the least in the world for me, and that not very wisely,' she continued, a little fiercely, 'for from the moment you saw me, you've done little else than try to disgust me more than I am with my penury and solitude. What do you mean? You always have a purpose—will you ever learn to be frank and straightforward, and speak plainly to those whom you ought to trust, if not to love? What are you driving at, Stanley?'
He looked up with a gentle start, like one recovering from a reverie, and said, with his yellow eyes fixed for a moment on his sister, before they dropped again to the carpet.
'You're miserably poor, Rachel: upon my word, I believe you haven't clear two hundred a year. I'll drink some tea, please, if you have got any, and it isn't too much trouble; and it strikes me as very curious you like living in this really very humiliating state.'
'I don't intend to go out for a governess, if that's what you mean; nor is there any privation in living as I do. Perhaps you think I ought to go and housekeep for you.'
'Why—ha, ha!—I really don't know, Radie, where I shall be. I'm not of any regiment now.'
'Why, you have not sold out?' She flushed and suddenly grew pale, for she was afraid something worse might have happened, having no great confidence in her brother.
But she was relieved.
'Ihavesold my commission.'
She looked straight at him with large eyes and compressed lips, and nodded her head two or three times, just murmuring, 'Well! well! well!'
'Women never understand these things. The army is awfully expensive—I mean, of course, a regiment like ours; and the interest of the money is better to me than my pay; and see, Rachel, there's no use in lecturingme—so don't let us quarrel. We're not very rich, you and I; and we each know our own affairs, you yours, and I mine, best.'
There was something by no means pleasant in his countenance when his temper was stirred, and a little thing sometimes sufficed to do so.
Rachel treated him with a sort of deference, a little contemptuous perhaps, such as spoiled children receive from indulgent elders; and she looked at him steadily, with a faint smile and arched brows, for a little while, and an undefinable expression of puzzle and curiosity.
'You are a very amusing brother—if not a very cheery or a very useful one, Stanley.'
She opened the door, and called across the little hall into the homely kitchen of the mansion.
'Tamar, dear, Master Stanley's here, and wishes to see you.'
'Oh! yes, poor dear old Tamar; ha, ha!' says the gentleman, with a gentle little laugh, 'I suppose she's as frightful as ever, that worthy woman. Certainly sheisawfully like a ghost. I wonder, Radie, you're not afraid of her at night in this cheerful habitation.Ishould, I know.'
'A ghostindeed, the ghost of old times, an ugly ghost enough for many of us. Poor Tamar! she was always very kind toyou, Stanley.'
And just then old Tamar opened the door. I must allow there was something very unpleasant about that worthy old woman; and not being under any personal obligations to her, I confess my acquiescence in the spirit of Captain Lake's remarks.
She was certainly perfectly neat and clean, but white predominated unpleasantly in her costume. Her cotton gown had once had a pale pattern over it, but wear and washing had destroyed its tints, till it was no better than white, with a mottling of gray. She had a large white kerchief pinned with a grisly precision across her breast, and a white linen cap tied under her chin, fitting close to her head, like a child's nightcap, such as they wore in my young days, and destitute of border or frilling about the face. It was a dress very odd and unpleasant to behold, and suggested the idea of an hospital, or a madhouse, or death, in an undefined way.
She was past sixty, with a mournful puckered and puffy face, tinted all over with a thin gamboge and burnt sienna glazing; and very blue under the eyes, which showed a great deal of their watery whites. This old woman had in her face and air, along with an expression of suspicion and anxiety, a certain character of decency and respectability, which made her altogether a puzzling and unpleasant apparition.
Being taciturn and undemonstrative, she stood at the door, looking with as pleased a countenance as so sad a portrait could wear upon the young gentleman.
He got up at his leisure and greeted 'old Tamar,' with his sleepy, amused sort of smile, and a few trite words of kindness. So Tamar withdrew to prepare tea; and he said, all at once, with a sudden accession of energy, and an unpleasant momentary glare in his eyes—
'You know, Rachel, this sort of thing is all nonsense. You cannot go on living like this; you must marry—you shall marry. Mark Wylder is down here, and he has got an estate and a house, and it is time he should marry you.'
'Mark Wylder is here to marry my cousin, Dorcas; and if he had no such intention, and were as free as you are, and again to urge his foolish suit upon his knees, Stanley, I would die rather than accept him.'
'It was not always so foolish a suit, Radie,' answered her brother, his eyes once more upon the carpet. 'Why should nothedo as well as another? You liked him well enough once.'
The young lady coloured rather fiercely.
'I am not a girl of seventeen now, Stanley; and—and, besides, Ihatehim.'
'What d—d nonsense! I really beg your pardon, Radie, but itisprecious stuff. You are quite unreasonable; you've no cause to hate him; he dropped you because you dropped him. It was only prudent; he had not a guinea. But now it is different, and hemustmarry you.'
The young lady stared with a haughty amazement upon her brother.
'I've made up my mind to speak to him; and if he won't I promise you he shall leave the country,' said the young man gently, just lifting his yellow eyes for a second with another unpleasant glare.
'I almost think you're mad, Stanley; and if you do anything so insane, sure I am you'll rue it while you live; and wherever he is I'll find him out, and acquit myself, with the scorn I owe him, of any share in a plot so unspeakably mean and absurd.'
'Brava, brava! you're a heroine, Radie; and why the devil,' he continued, in a changed tone, 'do you apply those insolent terms to what I purpose doing?'
'I wish I could find words strong enough to express my horror of your plot—a plot every way disgusting. You plainly know something to Mark Wylder's discredit; and you mean, Stanley, to coerce him by fear into a marriage with your penniless sister, whohateshim. Sir, do you pretend to be a gentleman?'
'I rather think so,' he said, with a quiet sneer.
'Give up every idea of it this moment. Has it not struck you that MarkWylder may possibly know something of you, you would not have published?'
'I don't think he does. What do you mean?'
'On my life, Stanley, I'll acquaint Mr. Wylder this evening with what you meditate, and the atrocious liberty you presume—yes, Sir, though you are my brother, theatrocious libertyyou dare to take with my name—unless you promise, upon your honour, now and here, to dismiss for ever the odious and utterly resultless scheme.'
Captain Lake looked very angry after his fashion, but said nothing. He could not at any time have very well defined his feelings toward his sister, but mingling in them, certainly, was a vein of unacknowledged dread, and, shall I say, respect. He knew she was resolute, fierce of will, and prompt in action, and not to be bullied.
'There's more in this, Stanley, than you care to tell me. You have not troubled yourself a great deal about me, you know: and I'm no worse off now than any time for the last three years. You'venotcome down here onmyaccount—that is, altogether; and be your plans what they may, you sha'n't mix my name in them. What you please—wise or foolish—you'll do in what concerns yourself;—you alwayshave—without consulting me; but I tell you again, Stanley, unless you promise, upon your honour, to forbear all mention of my name, I will write this evening to Lady Chelford, apprising her of your plans, and of my own disgust and indignation; and requesting her son's interference.Doyou promise?'
'There's no suchhaste, Radie. I only mentioned it. If you don't like it, of course it can lead to nothing, and there's no use in my speaking to Wylder, and so there's an end of it.'
'Theremaybe some use, a purpose in which neither my feelings nor interests have any part. I venture to say, Stanley, your plans are all foryourself. You want to extort some advantage from Wylder; and you think, in his present situation, about to marry Dorcas, you can use me for the purpose. Thank Heaven! Sir, you committed for once the rare indiscretion of telling the truth; and unless you make me the promise I require, I will take, before evening, such measures as will completely exculpate me. Once again, do you promise?'
'Yes, Radie; ha, ha! of course I promise.'
'Upon your honour?'
'Upon my honour—there.'
'I believe, you gentlemen dragoons observe that oath—I hope so. If you choose to break it you may give me some trouble, but you sha'n't compromise me. And now, Stanley, one word more. I fancy Mr. Wylder is a resolute man—none of the Wylders wanted courage.'
Captain Lake was by this time smiling his sly, sleepy smile upon hisFrench boots.
'If you have formed any plan which depends upon frightening him, it is a desperate one. All I can tell you, Stanley, is this, that if I were a man, and an attempt made to extort from me any sort of concession by terror, I would shoot the miscreant who made it through the head, like a highwayman.'
'What the devil are you talking about?' said he.
'Aboutyour danger,' she answered. 'For once in your life listen to reason. Mark Wylder is as prompt as you, and has ten times your nerve and sense; you are more likely to have committed yourself than he. Take care; he may retaliate yourthreatby a counter move more dreadful. I know nothing of your doings, Stanley—Heaven forbid! but be warned, or you'll rue it.'
'Why, Radie, you know nothing of the world. Do you suppose I'm quite demented? Ask a gentleman for his estate, or watch, because I know something to his disadvantage! Why, ha, ha! dear Radie, every man who has ever been on terms of intimacy with another must know things to his disadvantage, but no one thinks of telling them. The world would not tolerate it. It would prejudice the betrayer at least as much as the betrayed. I don't affect to be angry, or talk romance and heroics, because you fancy such stuff; but I assure you—when will that old woman give me a cup of tea?—I assure you, Radie, there's nothing in it.'
Rachel made no reply, but she looked steadfastly and uneasily upon the enigmatical face and downcast eyes of the young man.
'Well, I hope so,' she said at last, with a sigh, and a slight sense of relief.
So the young people sitting in the little drawing-room of Redman's farm pursued their dialogue; Rachel Lake had spoken last, and it was the captain's turn to speak next.
'Do you remember Miss Beauchamp, Radie?' he asked rather suddenly, after a very long pause.
'Miss Beauchamp? Oh! to be sure; you mean little Caroline; yes, she must be quite grown up by this time—five years—she promised to be pretty. What of her?'
Rachel, very flushed and agitated still, was now trying to speak as usual.
'Sheisgood-looking—a little coarse some people think,' resumed the young man; 'but handsome; black eyes—black hair—rather on a large scale, but certainly handsome. A style I admire rather, though it is not very refined, nor at all classic. But I like her, and I wish you'd advise me.' He was talking, after his wont, to the carpet.
'Oh?' she exclaimed, with a gentle sort of derision.
'You mean,' he said, looking up for a moment, with a sudden stare, 'she has got money. Of course she has; I could not afford to admire her if she had not; but I see you are not just now in a mood to trouble yourself about my nonsense—we can talk about it to-morrow; and tell me now, how do you get on with the Brandon people?'
Rachel was curious, and would, if she could, have recalled that sarcastic 'oh' which had postponed the story; but she was also a little angry, and with anger there was pride, which would not stoop to ask for the revelation which he chose to defer; so she said, 'Dorcas and I are very good friends; but I don't know very well what to make of her. Only I don't think she's quite so dull and apathetic as I at first supposed; but still I'm puzzled. She is either absolutely uninteresting, or very interesting indeed, and I can't say which.'
'Does she like you?' he asked.
'I really don't know. She tolerates me, like everything else; and I don't flatter her; and we see a good deal of one another upon those terms, and I have no complaint to make of her. She has some aversions, but no quarrels; and has a sort of laziness—mental, bodily, and moral—that is sublime, but provoking; and sometimes I admire her, and sometimes I despise her; and I do not yet know which feeling is the juster.'
'Surely she is woman enough to be fussed a little about her marriage?'
'Oh, dear, no! she takes the whole affair with a queenlike and supernatural indifference. She is either a fool or a very great philosopher, and there is something grand in the serene obscurity that envelopes her,' and Rachel laughed a very little.
'I must, I suppose, pay my respects; but to-morrow will be time enough. What pretty little tea-cups, Radie—quite charming—old cock china, isn't it? These were Aunt Jemima's, I think.'
'Yes; they used to stand on the little marble table between the windows.'
Old Tamar had glided in while they here talking, and placed the little tea equipage on the table unnoticed, and the captain was sipping his cup of tea, and inspecting the pattern, while his sister amused him.
'This place, I suppose, is confoundedly slow, is not it? Do they entertain the neighbours ever at Brandon?'
'Sometimes, when old Lady Chelford and her son are staying there.'
'But the neighbours can't entertain them, I fancy, or you. What a dreary thing a dinner party made up of such people must be—like "Aesop's Fables," where the cows and sheep converse.'
'And sometimes a wolf or a fox,' she said.
'Well, Radie, I know you mean me; but as you wish it, I'll carry my fangs elsewhere;—and what has become of Will Wylder?'
'Oh! he's in the Church!'
'Quite right—the only thing he was fit for;' and Captain Lake laughed like a man who enjoys a joke slily. 'And where is poor Billy quartered?'
'Not quite half a mile away; he has got the vicarage of Naunton Friars.'
'Oh, then, Will is not quite such a fool as we took him for.'
'It is worth just £180 a year! but he's very far from a fool.'
'Yes, of course, he knows Greek poets and Latin fathers, and all the rest of it. I don't mean he ever was plucked. I dare say he's the kind of fellowyou'dlike very well, Radie.' And his sly eyes had a twinkle in them which seemed to say, 'Perhaps I've divined your secret.'
'And so I do, and I like his wife, too,verymuch.'
'His wife! So William has married on £180 a year;' and the captain laughed quietly but very pleasantly again.
'On a very little more, at all events; and I think they are about the happiest, and I'm sure they are the best people in this part of the world.'
'Well, Radie, I'll see you to-morrow again. You preserve your good looks wonderfully. I wonder you haven't become an old woman here.'
And he kissed her, and went his way, with a slight wave of his hand, and his odd smile, as he closed the little garden gate after him.
He turned to his left, walking down towards the town, and the innocent green trees hid him quickly, and the gush and tinkle of the clear brook rose faint and pleasantly through the leaves, from the depths of the glen, and refreshed her ear after his unpleasant talk.
She was flushed, and felt oddly; a little stunned and strange, although she had talked lightly and easily enough.
'I forgot to ask him where he is staying: the Brandon Arms, I suppose. I don't at all like his coming down here after Mark Wylder; whatcanhe mean? He certainly never would have taken the trouble forme. Whatcanhe want of Mark Wylder? I thinkheknew old Mr. Beauchamp. He may be a trustee, but that's not likely; Mark Wylder was not the person for any such office. I hope Stanley does not intend trying to extract money from him; anything rather than that degradation—than thatvillainy. Stanley was always impracticable, perverse, deceitful, and so foolish with all his cunning and suspicion—soveryfoolish. Poor Stanley. He's so unscrupulous; I don't know what to think. He said he could force Mark Wylder to leave the country. It must be some bad secret. If he tries and fails, I suppose he will be ruined. I don't know what to think; I never was so uneasy. He will blast himself, and disgrace all connected with him; and it is quite useless speaking to him.'
Perhaps if Rachel Lake had been in Belgravia, leading a town life, the matter would have taken no such dark colouring and portentous proportions. But living in a small old house, in a dark glen, with no companion, and little to occupy her, it was different.
She looked down the silent way he had so lately taken, and repeated, rather bitterly, 'My only brother! my only brother! my only brother!'
That young lady was not quite a pauper, though she may have thought so. Comparatively, indeed, she was; but not, I venture to think, absolutely. She had just that symmetrical three hundred pounds a year, which the famous Dean of St. Patrick's tells us he so 'often wished that he had clear.' She had had some money in the Funds besides, still more insignificant but this her Brother Stanley had borrowed and begged piecemeal, and the Consols were no more. But though something of a nun in her way of life, there was no germ of the old maid in her, and money was not often in her thoughts. It was not a baddot; and her Brother Stanley had about twice as much, and therefore was much better off than many a younger son of a duke. But these young people, after the manner of men were spited with fortune; and indeed they had some cause. Old General Lake had once had more than ten thousand pounds a year, and lived, until the crash came, in the style of a vicious old prince. It was a great break up, and a worse fall for Rachel than for her brother, when the plate, coaches, pictures, and all the valuable effects' of old Tiberius went to the hammer, and he himself vanished from his clubs and other haunts, and lived only—a thin intermittent rumour—surmised to be in gaol, or in Guernsey, and quite forgotten soon, and a little later actually dead and buried.
'That's a devilish fine girl,' said Mark Wylder.
He was sitting at this moment on the billiard table, with his coat off and his cue in his hand, and had lighted a cigar. He and I had just had a game, and were tired of it.
'Who?' I asked. He was looking on me from the corners of his eyes, and smiling in a sly, rakish way, that no man likes in another.
'Radie Lake—she's a splendid girl, by Jove! Don't you think so? and she liked me once devilish well, I can tell you. She was thin then, but she has plumped out a bit, and improved every way.'
Whatever else he was, Mark was certainly no beauty;—a little short he was, and rather square—one shoulder a thought higher than the other—and a slight, energetic hitch in it when he walked. His features in profile had something of a Grecian character, but his face was too broad—very brown, rather a bloodless brown—and he had a pair of great, dense, vulgar, black whiskers. He was very vain of his teeth—his only really good point—for his eyes were a small cunning, gray pair; and this, perhaps, was the reason why he had contracted his habit of laughing and grinning a good deal more than the fun of the dialogue always warranted.
This sea-monster smoked here as unceremoniously as he would have done in 'Rees's Divan,' and I only wonder he did not call for brandy-and-water. He had either grown coarser a great deal, or I more decent, during our separation. He talked of hisfiancéeas he might of an opera-girl almost, and was now discussing Miss Lake in the same style.
'Yes, she is—she's very well; but hang it, Wylder, you're a married man now, and must give up talking that way. People won't like it, you know; they'll take it to mean more than it does, and you oughtn't. Let us have another game.'
'By-and-by; what do you think of Larkin?' asked Wylder, with a sly glance from the corners of his eyes. 'I think he prays rather more than is good for his clients; mind I spell it with an 'a,' not with an 'e;' but hang it, for an attorney, you know, and such a sharp chap, it does seem to me rather a—a joke, eh?'
'He bears a good character among the townspeople, doesn't he? And I don't see that it can do him any harm, remembering that he has a soul to be saved.'
'Or the other thing, eh?' laughed Wylder. 'But I think he comes it a little too strong—two sermons last Sunday, and a prayer-meeting at nine o'clock?'
'Well, it won't do him any harm,' I repeated.
'Harm! O, let Jos. Larkin alone for that. It gets him all the religious business of the county; and there are nice pickings among the charities, and endowments, and purchases of building sites, and trust deeds; I dare say it brings him in two or three hundred a year, eh?' And Wylder laughed again. 'It has broken up his hard, proud heart,' he says; 'but it left him a devilish hard head, I told him, and I think it sharpens his wits.'
'I rather think you'll find him a useful man; and to be so in his line of business he must have his wits about him, I can tell you.'
'He amused me devilishly,' said Wylder, 'with a sort of exhortation he treated me to; he's a delightfully impudent chap, and gave me to understand I was a limb of the Devil, and he a saint. I told him I was better than he, in my humble opinion, and so I am, by chalks. I know very well I'm a miserable sinner, but there's mercy above, and I don't hide my faults. I don't set up for a light or a saint; I'm just what the Prayer-book says—neither more nor less—a miserable sinner. There's only one good thing I can safely say for myself—I am no Pharisee; that's all; I air no religious prig, puffing myself, and trusting to forms, making long prayers in the market-place' (Mark's quotations were paraphrastic), 'and thinking of nothing but the uppermost seats in the synagogue, and broad borders, and the praise of men—hang them, I hate those fellows.'
So Mark, like other men we meet with, was proud of being a Publican; and his prayer was—'I thank Thee that I am not as other men are, spiritually proud, formalists, hypocrites, or even as this Pharisee.'
'Do you wish another game?' I asked.
'Just now,' said Wylder, emitting first a thin stream of smoke, and watching its ascent. 'Dorcas is the belle of the county; and she likes me, though she's odd, and don't show it the way other girls would. But a fellow knows pretty well when a girl likes him, and you know the marriage is a sensible sort of thing, and I'm determined, of course, to carry it through; but, hang it, a fellow can't help thinking sometimes there are other things besides money, and Dorcas is not my style. Rachel's more that way; she's atremendiousfine girl, by Jove! and a spirited minx, too; and I think,' he added, with an oath, having first taken two puffs at his cigar, 'if I had seen her first, I'd have thought twice before I'd have got myself into this business.'
I only smiled and shook my head. I did not believe a word of it. Yet, perhaps, I was wrong. He knew very well how to take care of his money; in fact, compared with other young fellows, he was a bit of a screw. But he could do a handsome and generous thing for himself. His selfishness would expand nobly, and rise above his prudential considerations, and drown them sometimes; and he was the sort of person, who, if the fancy were strong enough, might marry in haste, and repent—and make his wife, too, repent—at leisure.
'What do you laugh at, Charlie?' said Wylder, grinning himself.
'At your confounded grumbling, Mark. The luckiest dog in England! Will nothing content you?'
'Why, I grumble very little, I think, considering how well off I am,' rejoined he, with a laugh.
'Grumble! If you had a particle of gratitude, you'd build a temple toFortune—you're pagan enough for it, Mark.'
'Fortune has nothing to do with it,' says Mark, laughing again.
'Well, certainly, neither had you.'
'It was all the Devil. I'm not joking, Charlie, upon my word, though I'm laughing.' (Mark swore now and then, but I take leave to soften his oaths). 'It was the Persian Magician.'
'Come, Mark, say what you mean.'
'I mean what I say. When we were in the Persian Gulf, near six years ago, I was in command of the ship. The captain, you see, was below, with a hurt in his leg. We had very rough weather—a gale for two days and a night almost—and a heavy swell after. In the night time we picked up three poor devils in an open boat—. One was a Persian merchant, with a grand beard. We called him the magician, he was so like the pictures of Aladdin's uncle.'
'Whyhewas an African,' I interposed, my sense of accuracy offended.
'I don't care a curse what he was,' rejoined Mark; 'he was exactly like the picture in the story-books. And as we were lying off—I forget the cursed name of it—he begged me to put him ashore. He could not speak a word of English, but one of the fellows with him interpreted, and they were all anxious to get ashore. Poor devils, they had a notion, I believe, we were going to sell them for slaves, and he made me a present of a ring, and told me a long yarn about it. It was a talisman, it seems, and no one who wore it could ever be lost. So I took it for a keepsake; here it is,' and he extended his stumpy, brown little finger, and showed a thick, coarsely-made ring of gold, with an uncut red stone, of the size of a large cherry stone, set in it.
'The stone is a humbug,' said Wylder. 'It's not real. I showed it to Platten and Foyle. It's some sort of glass. But I would not part with it. I got a fancy into my head that luck would come with it, and maybe that glass stuff was the thing that had the virtue in it. Now look at these Persian letters on the inside, for that's the oddest thing about it. Hang it, I can't pull it off—I'm growing as fat as a pig—but they are like a queer little string of flowers; and I showed it to a clever fellow at Malta—a missionary chap—and he read it off slick, and what do you think it means: "I will come up again;"' and he swore a great oath. 'It's as true as you stand there—ourmotto. Is not it odd? So I got the "resurgam" you see there engraved round it, and by Jove! it did bring me up. I was near lost, and did rise again. Eh?'
Well, it certainly was a curious accident. Mark had plenty of odd and not unamusing lore. Men who beat about the world in ships usually have; and these 'yarns,' furnished, after the pattern of Othello's tales of Anthropophagites and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders, one of the many varieties of fascination which he practised on the fair sex. Only in justice to Mark, I must say that he was by no means so shameless a drawer of the long-bow as the Venetian gentleman and officer.
'When I got this ring, Charlie, three hundred a year and a London life would have been Peru and Paradise to poor Pill Garlick, and see what it has done for me.'
'Aye, and better than Aladdin's, for you need not rub it and bring up that confounded ugly genii; the slave of your ring works unseen.'
'So he does,' laughed Wylder, in a state of elation, 'and he's not done working yet, I can tell you. When the estates are joined in one, they'll be good eleven thousand a year; and Larkin says, with smart management, I shall have a rental of thirteen thousand before three years! And that's only the beginning, by George! Sir Henry Twisden can't hold his seat—he's all but broke—as poor as Job, and the gentry hate him, and he lives abroad. He has had a hint or two already, and he'll never fight the next election. D'ye see—hey?'
And Wylder winked and grinned, with a wag of his head.
'M.P.—eh? You did not see that before. I look a-head a bit, eh? and can take my turn at the wheel—eh?'
And he laughed with cunning exultation.
'Miss Rachel will find I'm not quite such a lubber as she fancies. But even then it is only begun. Come, Charlie, you used to like a bet. What do you say? I'll buy you that twenty-five guinea book of pictures—what's its name?—if you give me three hundred guineas one month after I'm a peer of Parliament. Hey? There's a sporting offer for you. Well! what do you say—eh?'
'You mean to come out as an orator, then?'
'Orator be diddled! Do you take me for a fool? No, Charlie; but I'll come out strong as avoter—that's the stuff they like—at the right side, of course, and that is the way to manage it. Thirteen thousand a year—the oldest family in the county—and a steady thick and thin supporter of the minister. Strong points, eh, Charlie? Well, do you take my offer?'
I laughed and declined, to his great elation, and just then the gong sounded and we were away to our toilets.
While making my toilet for dinner, I amused myself by conjecturing whether there could be any foundation in fact for Mark's boast, that Miss Brandon liked him. Women are so enigmatical—some in everything—all in matters of the heart. Don't they sometimes actually admire what is repulsive? Does not brutality in our sex, and even rascality, interest them sometimes? Don't they often affect indifference, and occasionally even aversion, where there is a different sort of feeling?
As I went down I heard Miss Lake chatting with her queen-like cousin near an open door on the lobby. Rachel Lake was, indeed, a very constant guest at the Hall, and the servants paid her much respect, which I look upon as a sign that the young heiress liked her and treated her with consideration; and indeed there was an insubordinate and fiery spirit in that young lady which would have brooked nothing less and dreamed of nothing but equality.
Who should I find in the drawing-room, talking fluently and smiling, after his wont, to old Lady Chelford, who seemed to receive him very graciously, for her at least, but Captain Stanley Lake!
I can't quite describe to you the odd and unpleasant sort of surprise which that very gentlemanlike figure, standing among the Brandon household gods at this moment, communicated to me. I thought of the few odd words and looks that had dropped from Wylder about him with an ominous pang as I looked, and I felt somehow as if there were some occult relation between that confused prelude of Wylder's and the Mephistophelean image that had risen up almost upon the spot where it was spoken. I glanced round for Wylder, but he was not there.
'You know Captain Lake?' said Lord Chelford, addressing me.
And Lake turned round upon me, a little abruptly, his odd yellowish eyes, a little like those of the sea-eagle, and the ghost of his smile that flickered on his singularly pale face, with a stern and insidious look, confronted me. There was something evil and shrinking in his aspect, which I felt with a sort of chill, like the commencing fascination of a serpent. I often thought since that he had expected to see Wylder before him.
The church-yard meteor expired, there was nothing in a moment but his ordinary smile of recognition.
'You're surprised to see me here,' he said in his very pleasing low tones.
'I lighted on him in the village; and I knew Miss Brandon would not forgive me if I allowed him to go away without coming here. (He had his hand upon Lake's shoulder.) They are cousins, you know; we are all cousins. I'm bad at genealogies. My mother could tell us all about it—we, Brandons, Lakes; Wylders, and Chelfords.'
At this moment Miss Brandon entered, with her brilliant Cousin Rachel.The blonde and the dark, it was a dazzling contrast.
So Chelford led Stanley Lake before the lady of the castle. I thought of the 'Fair Brunnisende,' with the captive knight in the hands of her seneschal before her, and I fancied he said something of having found him trespassing in her town, and brought him up for judgment. Whatever Lord Chelford said, Miss Brandon received it very graciously, and even with a momentary smile. I wonder she did not smile oftener, it became her so. But her greeting to Captain Lake was more than usually haughty and frozen, and her features, I fancied, particularly proud and pale. It seemed to me to indicate a great deal more than mere indifference—something of aversion, and nearer to a positive emotion than anything I had yet seen in that exquisitely apathetic face.
How was it that this man with the yellow eyes seemed to gleam from them an influence of pain or disturbance, wherever almost he looked.
'Shake hands with your cousin, my dear,' said old Lady Chelford, peremptorily. The little scene took place close to her chair; and upon this stage direction the little piece of by-play took place, and the young lady coldly touched the captain's hand, and passed on.
Young as he was, Stanley Lake was an old man of the world, not to be disconcerted, and never saw more than exactly suited him. Waiting in the drawing-room, I had some entertaining talk with Miss Lake. Her conversation was lively, and rather bold, not at all in the coarse sense, but she struck me as having formed a system of ethics and views of life, both good-humoured and sarcastic, and had carried into her rustic sequestration the melancholy and precocious lore of her early London experience.
When Lord Chelford joined us, I perceived that Wylder was in the room, and saw a very cordial greeting between him and Lake. The captain appeared quite easy and cheerful; but Mark, I thought, notwithstanding his laughter and general jollity, was uncomfortable; and I saw him once or twice, when Stanley's eye was not upon him, glance sharply on the young man with an uneasy and not very friendly curiosity.
At dinner Lake was easy and amusing. That meal passed off rather pleasantly; and when we joined the ladies in the drawing-room, the good vicar's enthusiastic little wife came to meet us, in one of her honest little raptures.
'Now, here's a thing worth your looking at! Did you ever see anything so bee-utiful in your life? It is such a darling little thing; and—look now—is not it magnificent?'
She arrested the file of gentlemen just by a large lamp, before whose effulgence she presented the subject of her eulogy—one of those costly trifles which announce the approach of Hymen, as flowers spring up before the rosy steps of May.
Well, it was pretty—French, I dare say—a little set of tablets—a toy—the cover of enamel, studded in small jewels, with a slender border of symbolic flowers, and with a heart in the centre, a mosaic of little carbuncles, rubies, and other red and crimson stones, placed with a view to light and shade.
'Exquisite, indeed!' said Lord Chelford. 'Is this yours, Mrs. Wylder?'
'Mine, indeed!' laughed poor little Mrs. Dorothy. 'Well, dear me, no, indeed;'—and in an earnest whisper close in his ear—'a present to Miss Brandon, and the donor is not a hundred miles away from your elbow, my lord!' and she winked slyly, and laughed, with a little nod at Wylder.
'Oh! I see—to be sure—really, Wylder, it does your taste infinite credit.'
'I'm glad you like it,' says Wylder, chuckling benignantly on it, over his shoulder. 'I believe Ihavea little taste that way; those are all real, you know, those jewels.'
'Oh, yes! of course. Have you seen it, Captain Lake?' And he placed it in that gentleman's fingers, who now took his turn at the lamp, and contemplated the little parallelogram with a gleam of sly amusement.
'What are you laughing at?' asked Wylder, a little snappishly.
'I was thinking it's very like the ace of hearts,' answered the captain softly, smiling on.
'Fie, Lake, there's no poetry in you,' said Lord Chelford, laughing.
'Well, now, though, really it is funny; it did not strike me before, but do you know, now, itis,' laughs out jolly Mrs. Dolly, 'isn't it. Look at it, do, Mr. Wylder—isn't it like the ace of hearts?'
Wylder was laughing rather redly, with the upper part of his face very surly, I thought.
'Never mind, Wylder, it's the winning card,' said Lord Chelford, laying his hand on his shoulder.
Whereupon Lake laughed quietly, still looking on the ace of hearts with his sly eyes.
And Wylder laughed too, more suddenly and noisily than the humour of the joke seemed quite to call for, and glanced a grim look from the corners of his eyes on Lake, but the gallant captain did not seem to perceive it; and after a few seconds more he handed it very innocently back to Mrs. Dorothy, only remarking—
'Seriously, itisvery pretty, andappropriate.'
And Wylder, making no remark, helped himself to a cup of coffee, and then to a glass of Curaçoa, and then looked industriously at a Spanish quarto of Don Quixote, and lastly walked over to me on the hearthrug.
'What the d— has he come down here for? It can't be for money, or balls, or play, and he has no honest business anywhere. Do you know?'
'Lake? Oh! I really can't tell; but he'll soon tire of country life. I don't think he's much of a sportsman.'
'Ha, isn't he? I don't know anything about him almost; but I hate him.'
'Why should you, though? He's a very gentlemanlike fellow and your cousin.'
'My cousin—the Devil's cousin—everyone's cousin. I don't know who's my cousin, or who isn't; nor you don't, who've been for ten years over those d—d papers; but I think he's the nastiest dog I ever met. I took a dislike to him at first sight long ago, and that never happened me but I was right.'
Wylder looked confoundedly angry and flustered, standing with his heels on the edge of the rug, his hands in his pockets, jingling some silver there, and glancing from under his red forehead sternly and unsteadily across the room.
'He's not a man for country quarters! he'll soon be back in town, or toBrighton,' I said.
'Ifhedoesn't,Iwill. That's all.'
Just to get him off this unpleasant groove with a little jolt, I said—
'By-the-bye, Wylder, you know the pictures here; who is the tall man, with the long pale face, and wild phosphoric eyes? I was always afraid of him; in a long peruke, and dark red velvet coat, facing the hall-door. I had a horrid dream about him last night.'
'That? Oh, I know—that's Lorne Brandon. He was one of our family devils, he was. A devil in a family now and then is not such a bad thing, when there's work for him.' (All the time he was talking to me his angry little eyes were following Lake.) 'They say he killed his son, a blackguard, who was found shot, with his face in the tarn in the park. He was going to marry the gamekeeper's daughter, it was thought, and he and the old boy, who was for high blood, and all that, were at loggerheads about it. It was not proved, only thought likely, which showed what a nice character he was; but he might have done worse. I suppose Miss Partridge would have had a precious lot of babbies; and who knows where the estate would have been by this time.'
'I believe, Charlie,' he recommenced suddenly, 'there is not such an unnatural family on record as ours; is there? Ha, ha, ha! It's well to be distinguished in any line. I forget all the other good things he did; but he ended by shooting himself through the head in his bed-room, and that was not the worst thing ever he did.'
And Wylder laughed again, and began to whistle very low—not, I fancy, for want of thought, but as a sort of accompaniment thereto, for he suddenly said—
'And where is he staying?'
'Who?—Lake?'
'Yes.'
'I don't know; but I think he mentioned Larkins's house, didn't he? I'm not quite sure.'
'I suppose he this I'm made of money. By Jove! if he wants to borrow anyI'll surprise him, the cur; I'll talk to him; ha, ha, ha!'
And Wylder chuckled angrily, and the small change in his pocket tinkled fiercely, as his eye glanced on the graceful captain, who was entertaining the ladies, no doubt, very agreeably in the distance.
Miss Lake declined the carriage to-night. Her brother was to see her home, and there was a leave-taking, and the young ladies whispered a word or two, and kissed, after the manner of their kind. To Captain Lake, Miss Brandon's adieux were as cold and haughty as her greeting.
'Did you see that?' said Wylder in my ear, with a chuckle; and, wagging his head, he added, rather loftily for him, 'Miss Brandon, I reckon, has taken your measure, Master Stanley, as well as I. I wonder what the deuce the old dowager sees in him. Old women always like rascals.'
And he added something still less complimentary.
I suppose the balance of attraction and repulsion was overcome by Miss Lake, much as he disliked Stanley, for Wylder followed them out with Lord Chelford, to help the young lady into her cloak and goloshes, and I found myself near Miss Brandon for the first time that evening, and much to my surprise she was first to speak, and that rather strangely.
'You seem to be very sensible, Mr. De Cresseron; pray tell me, frankly, what do you think of all this?'
'I am not quite sure, Miss Brandon, that I understand your question,' I replied, enquiringly.
'I mean of the—the family arrangements, in which, as Mr. Wylder's friend, you seem to take an interest?' she said.
'There can hardly be a second opinion, Miss Brandon; I think it a very wise measure,' I replied, much surprised.
'Very wise—exactly. But don't these very wise things sometimes turn out very foolishly? Do you really think your friend, Mr. Wylder, cares about me?'
'I take that for granted: in the nature of things it can hardly be otherwise,' I replied, a good deal startled and perplexed by the curious audacity of her interrogatory.
'It was very foolish of me to expect from Mr. Wylder's friend any other answer; you are very loyal, Mr. De Cresseron.'
And without awaiting my reply she made some remark which I forget to Lady Chelford, who sat at a little distance; and, appearing quite absorbed in her new subject, she placed herself close beside the dowager, and continued to chat in a low tone.
I was vexed with myself for having managed with so little skill a conversation which, opened so oddly and frankly, might have placed me on relations so nearly confidential, with that singular and beautiful girl. I ought to have rejoiced—but we don't always see what most concerns our peace. In the meantime I had formed a new idea of her. She was so unreserved, it seemed, and yet in this directness there was something almost contemptuous.
By this time Lord Chelford and Wylder returned; and, disgusted rather with myself, I ruminated on my want of general-ship.
In the meantime, Miss Lake, with her hand on her brother's arm, was walking swiftly under the trees of the back avenue towards that footpath which, through wild copse and broken clumps near the park, emerges upon the still darker road which passes along the wooded glen by the mills, and skirts the little paling of the recluse lady's garden.
They had not walked far, when Lake suddenly said—
'What do you think of all this, Radie—this particular version, I mean, of marriage,à-la-mode, they are preparing up there?' and he made a little dip of his cane towards Brandon Hall, over his shoulder. 'I really don't think Wylder cares twopence about her, or she about him,' and Stanley Lake laughed gently and sleepily.
'I don't think they pretend to like one another. It is quite understood. It was all, you know, old Lady Chelford's arrangement: and Dorcas is so supine, I believe she would allow herself to be given away by anyone, and to anyone, rather than be at the least trouble. She provokes me.'
'But I thought she liked Sir Harry Bracton: he's a good-looking fellow; and Queen's Bracton is a very nice thing, you know.'
'Yes, so they said; but that would, I think, have been worse. Something may be made of Mark Wylder. He has some sense and caution, has not he?—but Sir Harry is wickedness itself!'
'Why—what has Sir Harry done? That is the way you women run away with things! If a fellow's been a little bit wild, he's Beelzebub at once. Bracton's a very good fellow, I can assure you.'
The fact is, Captain Lake, an accomplished player, made a pretty little revenue of Sir Harry's billiards, which were wild and noisy; and liking his money, thought he liked himself—a confusion not uncommon.
'I don't know, and can't say, how you fine gentlemen define wickedness: only, as an obscure female, I speak according to my lights: and he is generally thought the wickedest man in this county.'
'Well, you know, Radie, women like wicked fellows: it is contrast, I suppose, but they do; and I'm sure, from what Bracton has said to me—I know him intimately—that Dorcas likes him, and I can't conceive why they are not married.'
'It is very happy, for her at least, they are not,' said Rachel, and a long silence ensued.
Their walk continued silent for the greater part, neither was quite satisfied with the other. But Rachel at last said—
'Stanley, you meditate some injury to Mark Wylder.'
'I, Radie?' he answered quietly, 'why on earth should you think so?'
'I saw you twice watch him when you thought no one observed you—and I know your face too well, Stanley, to mistake.'
'Now that's impossible, Radie; for I really don't think I once thought of him all this evening—except just while we were talking.'
'You keep your secret as usual, Stanley,' said the young lady.
'Really, Radie, you're quite mistaken. I assure you, upon my honour, I've no secret. You're a very odd girl—why won't you believe me?'
Miss Rachel only glanced across her mufflers on his face. There was a bright moonlight, broken by the shadows of overhanging boughs and withered leaves; and the mottled lights and shadows glided oddly across his pale features. But she saw that he was smiling his sly, sleepy smile, and she said quietly—
'Well, Stanley, I ask no more—but you don't deceive me.'
'I don't try to. If your feelings indeed had been different, and that you had not made such a point—you know—'
'Don't insult me, Stanley, by talking again as you did this morning. What I say is altogether on your own account. Mark my words, you'll find him too strong for you; aye, and too deep. I see very plainly thathesuspects you as I do. You saw it, too, for nothing of that kind escapes you. Whatever you meditate, he probably anticipates it—you know best—and you will find him prepared. You have given him time enough. You were always the same, close, dark, and crooked, and wise in your own conceit. I am very uneasy about it, whatever it is.Ican't help it. It will happen—and most ominously I feel that you are courting a dreadful retaliation, and that you will bring on yourself a great misfortune; but it is quite vain, I know, speaking to you.'
'Really, Radie, you're enough to frighten a poor fellow; you won't mind a word I say, and go on predicting all manner of mischief between me and Wylder, the very nature of which I can't surmise. Would you dislike my smoking a cigar, Radie?'
'Oh, no,' answered the young lady, with a little laugh and a heavy sigh, for she knew it meant silence, and her dark auguries grew darker.
To my mind there has always been something inexpressibly awful in family feuds. Mortal hatred seems to deepen and dilate into something diabolical in these perverted animosities. The mystery of their origin—their capacity for evolving latent faculties of crime—and the steady vitality with which they survive the hearse, and speak their deep-mouthed malignities in every new-born generation, have associated them somehow in my mind with a spell of life exceeding and distinct from human and a special Satanic action.
My chamber, as I have mentioned, was upon the third storey. It was one of many, opening upon the long gallery, which had been the scene, four generations back, of that unnatural and bloody midnight duel which had laid one scion of this ancient house in his shroud, and driven another a fugitive to the moral solitudes of a continental banishment.
Much of the day, as I told you, had been passed among the grisly records of these old family crimes and hatreds. They had been an ill-conditioned and not a happy race. When I heard the servant's step traversing that long gallery, as it seemed to the in haste to be gone, and when all grew quite silent, I began to feel a dismal sort of sensation, and lighted the pair of wax candles which I found upon the small writing table. How wonderful and mysterious is the influence of light! What sort of beings must those be who hate it?
The floor, more than anything else, showed the great age of the room. It was warped and arched all along by the wall between the door and the window. The portion of it which the carpet did not cover showed it to be oak, dark and rugged. My bed was unexceptionably comfortable, but, in my then mood, I could have wished it a great deal more modern. Its four posts were, like the rest of it, oak, well-nigh black, fantastically turned and carved, with a great urn-like capital and base, and shaped midway, like a gigantic lance-handle. Its curtains were of thick and faded tapestry. I was always a lover of such antiquities, but I confess at that moment I would have vastly preferred a sprightly modern chintz and a trumpery little French bed in a corner of the Brandon Arms. There was a great lowering press of oak, and some shelves, with withered green and gold leather borders. All the furniture belonged to other times.
I would have been glad to hear a step stirring, or a cough even, or the gabble of servants at a distance. But there was a silence and desertion in this part of the mansion which, somehow, made me feel that I was myself a solitary intruder on this level of the vast old house.
I shan't trouble you about my train of thoughts or fancies; but I began to feel very like a gentleman in a ghost story, watching experimentally in a haunted chamber. My cigar case was a resource. I was not a bit afraid of being found out. I did not even take the precaution of smoking up the chimney. I boldly lighted my cheroot. I peeped through the dense window curtain there were no shutters. A cold, bright moon was shining with clear sharp lights and shadows. Everything looked strangely cold and motionless outside. The sombre old trees, like gigantic hearse plumes, black and awful. The chapel lay full in view, where so many of the, strange and equivocal race, under whose ancient roof-tree I then stood, were lying under their tombstones.
Somehow, I had grown nervous. A little bit of plaster tumbled down the chimney, and startled me confoundedly. Then some time after, I fancied I heard a creaking step on the lobby outside, and, candle in hand, opened the door, and looked out with an odd sort of expectation, and a rather agreeable disappointment, upon vacancy.