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(frontis)
BY
(contents)
It was a bit of the "old country" that had not been
syndicated and modernized since the bridegroom had seen it last--when
he was a young fellow at Cambridge, paying visits to the houses of his
university chums because his own home was inaccessible. Tall hedges
embraced the ripening wheat-fields still; brambly ditches yawned beneath
them. There were dense woods hereabouts that made green tunnels of the
road, and there were thickets of fern and wild vines and bushes--acres of
unprofitable beauty--under the useless trees. The spot was a joy to
the sentimental wayfarer, and Mrs. Wingate's gaze meant rapture not
expressible in words.
"This," she sighed, "is England, Billy."
She meant that this was the England of her
romantic dreams--England as described to her by exiled parents and in scores of delightful books.
"And this," said Billy, "is the place I told you
of."
He pointed with his whip.
Just below and before them rose an ancient gateway, iron and stone, with
much heraldic ornament. An ivy-mantled lodge with curly chimney-stacks
stood immediately within; and beyond, sloping gently upward for a mile or
more, a straight, grassed drive between thick woods--a beautiful green
vista, three times as wide as an ordinary park avenue--was closed, on
an elevated horizon, by the indistinct but imposing mass of a great grey
house, one of those "stately homes of England" which are our
pride and boast. It was a lovely picture, and a lovely atmosphere through
which to view it--tinted with the hues of approaching sunset on a late
summer day. A few head of deer were browsing quietly on the
shadow-patterned sward; thrushes were calling to each other from wood to
wood; partridges flying homeward to their nests in the corn, disturbed by
the sound of the horses' hoofs.
"There it is," said the bridegroom, his eyes kindling, his
voice full of feeling, evoked by thronging memories of the splendid days of
youth. "And you should see it when the pink may is out and those
woods full of rhododendron in flower! Look at that grass ride--the
deer like to come out there to feed, though they hide in the fern to
rest--and
what a stretch for a gallop! There wasn't the shooting in my time that there is now, but many a jolly day have I had with Walter Desailly in those fields over there, walking up our birds with one old dog through the turnips and stubble. You see that water shining through the trees? There was duck there; we shot them with a rook rifle by moonlight out of a bedroom window, and scared the maids with the row we made; once we caught a forty-two pound pike on a night-line; Walter had been fishing for it all his life, and found three sets of his tackle rusted in its jaws. The old squire had it stuffed for a curiosity. I wonder if Walter has it still, and whether he ever thinks of those old days?"
The speaker sighed inaudibly. He was a fine man, in his prime, inclining
to stoutness, and with a suspicion of frost upon his short brown beard.
"Those old days" were nearly twenty years ago.
"You ought to call upon him," said Mrs. Wingate, "and
remind him of them. I'm sure he would be delighted, if you were such
friends as that. Then you could show me over. Probably he would invite us
to stay with him. At any rate, he might be able to advise us about a place
for ourselves."
This pair, it must be explained, were wealthy, as was the case with many
Australians at that date--a period now indicated in the conversation
of their countrymen is "the good times"--he a lucky
Queensland pastoralist, she an heiress of the Silver
Boom, both rather new to prosperity of this kind, but too naturally nice to be vulgarized by it. Neither had any of the gross ambitions common to persons in their case, but both desired keenly to enjoy their money. They had just concluded a most successful London season, without having been presented at Court or made notorious in society papers; and they were now touring the country behind their own horses, mainly for rest and independence, and to see what was to be seen, but also in search of a good house in a sporting neighbourhood, where they might make a home and entertain their friends during the shooting and hunting seasons. Mrs. Wingate's dream of luxury was to live in a medieval castle, with history around her in the atmosphere of refined, aristocratic, old-England life, as she had romantically imagined it. Mr. Wingate craved for gun and rod and a straight run after a stout fox--the joys of his early manhood, which memory had idealized--but was mainly bent at present upon pleasing his wife. They gazed together at the most attractive "place" they had yet seen, with thoughts of proprietorship that they felt were absurd and vain. Windsor Castle seemed as likely to be to let as the old mansion of the Desaillys, which had not wanted a master of the name for at least four hundred years.
"Why don't you call on him?" urged the bride. "To have
been college friends surely is introduction enough?"
"We parted on bad terms," replied Wingate, with an air of
reserve.
"What does that matter, after all these hundreds of years? You are
not Corsican vendetta people. English gentlemen quarrel and have done with
it; they don't bear malice for a lifetime. I am sure he has forgotten the
whole thing long ago. Unless," she added, with a glance at her
husband's face, "unless it was something very desperate indeed. Was
it? Oh, I believe it was! A woman, of course. If you don't want to tell me,
Billy, you need not."
Billy's left arm curled round the bride's slim waist.
"You are such a dear, kind little soul, Nettie, that I really
don't mind telling you," he said, after a pause. "You'll
believe me, I know, when I declare on my honour that it wasn't my fault.
And, besides, it was before your time, sweetheart; almost before you were
born, indeed."
"Yes, Billy; I know I am not the first, by
thousands!"
"Oh, not quite so many as that! Just--well, never
mind--there's only you now, pet--only you for evermore." He
kissed her at this point, for it was a lonely bit of road where they had
stopped to look at the view and breathe the horses. And she returned his
caress with a laugh, much comforted by the reflection that the particular
lady referred to, if still alive, would be forty by this time, if not
more.
"She was the daughter of a Cambridge book-
seller," confessed Billy. "It don't sound much, but a truer lady never stepped. We called her 'the Princess,' because she treated us all with such crushing dignity. Lots of us were gone on her: really, I think, just because of that; but Walter Desailly cut me out. At any rate, he said something that made me stop going there, so that I mightn't seem to be interfering with him. Of course I imagined it was just a little affair, like others, and never thought he would dream of marrying her, because the Desaillys are such great folks and so proud of their pedigree. But he did. I suppose she is living there now in state as my lady, and forgets that she ever waited in her father's shop. But, no--she wouldn't; she hadn't an ounce of that sort of snobbishness in her."
"Go on," said Mrs. Wingate, breaking a meditative pause.
"There is no motive for quarrel, so far. I hope I am not
strait-laced, Billy dear, and you couldn't make me jealous if you tried;
but I do hope you did not elope with her
afterwards."
"I did nothing, Nettie, that you would not have approved of, had
you been there and known all the circumstances. Walter did not know all the
circumstances, and a man won't believe the word of his best friend in these
cases, if appearances are against him. Come to that, I don't blame him. I
wouldn't myself. It was a chapter of accidents all through. In the first
place, I never thought of
Lexie Baird again after I left Cambridge. I came home--"
"And got engaged to that fat woman who is now Mrs.
Ross."
"She was not a fat woman then. Let us keep to the point, if you
please. But perhaps you don't care to hear about it?"
"Oh, I do--I do! I never was more interested in anything. And
I think it is so good and dear of you, Billy, not to mind telling
me."
She slipped her hand within his elbow, and laid her fair young cheek
upon his very large coat sleeve. She really was a sweet little bride,
incapable of a mean thought about her husband, as he well knew.
"I came home, and took to business, and did not return to England
for a couple of years and more. I went then because--no,
not because of any woman, fat or thin, as I see you would
insinuate--though it was not nice to live in a place where a
fascinating widow was employing lawyers to write her letters to you. At any
rate--well, look here, Nettie; young men will be young men, just as
boys will be boys--they can't help it; and you needn't rake up old
follies now that I've grown wise. Yes, I'm wise now. You are a witness to
it. All those blunders were teaching me your value, don't you see? Perhaps
I had better not tell you any more. It was stupid to mention the
subject."
She apologized so prettily for having dared to
laugh, and urged him with such obvious sincerity not to tell her any more if he would rather not, that he proceeded with his little tale immediately.
"I went to shoot at a place not far from here, and a girl in the
house told me that young Desailly had married a low barmaid, and been cut
by his family for it. I was quite staggered by the news, because he'd been
a fastidious sort of fellow, and I wanted to find him and cheer him up a
bit; but no one knew where he was. The girl, Miss Balcombe--her father
was the rector here--she was awfully bitter. It seems Walter had
wanted to marry her at one time, and his people wouldn't have it. She was
no end of a pretty girl, but there was something about her--she
reminded me of a silky cat; and the way she talked of poor Lexie--I
didn't know it was Lexie then--was fiendish. A low barmaid, indeed! No
wonder I hadn't a notion what was coming. By the way, she honoured me with
a particular regard. It's not for me to say it, but if I'd
liked--however, I didn't."
"Sure?" Mrs. Wingate questioned cautiously.
"Quite sure. She gave me the creeps sometimes when she used to
smile. It was a perfectly heavenly smile, if you can understand, but she
just put it on and off like a mask, and it was always the same for all
purposes. She'd look really like an angel with that smile on, and her fair
hair, and complexion like a lily; and all the time you'd have a cold
feeling that she was thinking she'd like to strangle you. At
least, that's how I felt when I was trying not to make love to her--I mean to resist her inducements to--I mean--but you know what I mean."
"Perfectly, Billy dear."
"Oh, she was a little devil, that girl! I know she was, though she
was a parson's daughter. To look at her father, a real old-style rector,
fat and red, fond of good living and not too fond of work--the
commonplace personified--you'd really feel doubts as to whether he
could be her father. Same with her mother, a meek little goose
of a woman, who just fell down before her child and worshipped her. But a
dear little soul for all that. We got on capitally together. She invited me
to visit them at that old rectory over there"--pointing with his
whip to a church tower in the landscape--"and I got a sprained
wrist from a hunting fall first time I went out that season, and she nursed
me as if I were a son of her own. What are you smiling at,
Nettie?"
"Nothing, dearest. I didn't know I smiled."
"And it was while I was there that everything happened. The very
day I arrived they told me that Walter had been forgiven and taken back,
because his wife--that low barmaid, you know!--had had a son, and
somebody had reported that it was a fine child, and the old squire, being
naturally anxious about the succession, thought it time to set things
straight. Nobody had seen them yet, but there was to be a small dinner
party that night to meet them,
and I had been invited. Well, you can imagine my feelings when I stood with the others round the fire in the hall--I wish you could have a sight of that hall, Nettie!--to see, coming down the stairs by Walter's side, our princess--and looking it too, by George!--instead of the vulgar creature I had been expecting. I never was so struck all of a heap in my life. As for Geraldine Balcombe, oh, it was rich to see her smiling when Mrs. Walter Desailly was introduced to her! I had walked there with her--up that very grass ride you see before you, which is a good deal longer than it looks--and all the way she had been dancing on her toes, as it were, full of the triumph she was going to have over them all, and especially over the wife Walter had taken instead of her; she couldn't keep her elation within decent bounds. Dress!--I believe you. A regular ball gown of white satin, the best she'd got, and pearls round her neck--a lovely neck it was, too--and flowers out of the greenhouse. She'd got herself up regardless, thinking how mad Walter would be when he compared her with the low person, and how old Sir Thomas and my lady would curse the stratagems they had used so successfully to keep her out of the family. She quite thought she was going to have a rich revenge on the lot of them that night. And there was Lexie, looking like a real princess, in her plain black gown, with hardly any neck showing, putting everybody in the shade. Oh, she was a
beautiful woman, Nettie! There was no mistake bout it. Even Geraldine, though her vanity was like a rhinoceros' hide, felt it directly she saw her; and I know she hated poor Lexie like poison from that moment. There was no love lost on the other side either. When Lexie heard her calling 'Walter' here and 'Walter' there, like a cooing dove, I understood the look in her eyes. She was quick enough to smell a rat, and she wasn't the sort of woman to be trifled with. I can tell you she walked into that house all on fire with the humiliations they had made her suffer before they knew her, and if she didn't make them eat humble pie, from the great Sir Thomas downwards, I'm a Dutchman. Do you think she'd have her child sent for to be introduced and inspected? Not a bit of it. Everybody was dying to see the heir, for whose sake she had been condoned and acknowledged, and she calmly refused to have him disturbed out of his regular habits. Sir Thomas himself said, with his queer smile--he and she became very good friends afterwards--that he supposed they'd have to go on their knees at the nursery door before she'd deign to show it. Oh, she was a match for Miss Geraldine--except that she was all open and above board, and Geraldine was so secret and treacherous. I know that girl began to make mischief between husband and wife--and me--before we'd been an hour together. Of course Lexie vas very pleased to see me."
"Why? if you don't mind my asking, Billy."
"Well, you see I was an old friend, and I was not so grand as the
Desaillys. Though she was not bit afraid of them, their stately ways
oppressed her Besides, she was angry with them for the way they had
repudiated her, and too proud to submit to be suddenly patronized and
tolerated, and to make herself cheap to them all at once. Moreover, Walter
behaved like an idiot. Instead of keeping near her, to pilot her about and
help her to understand the strange ways, he sat the whole blessed evening
in Geraldine Balcombe's pocket. Her doing, of course, but that
didn't excuse him. He was her husband, and he ought to have backed her up.
I know she felt it. In fact, I could see plainly that they were not as
happy together as they should have been. Walter would have liked to talk to
me about that--he did tell me he'd had a devil of a time keeping house
on a bachelor's allowance--but I always shut him up straight. He was a
selfish fellow, Walter Desailly. She was infinitely too good for
him."
He paused, gazing at the grey pile on the horizon, unconscious of the
creeping twilight that had begun to blot it out. His wife heaved a pensive
little sigh. He did not hear it.
"They asked me to The Chase to stay. By degrees the house filled,
for Sir Thomas tried to make up to her for past slights and to bring the
county families to receive and respect her. Men came to shoot, and
there were parties given. Somehow Geraldine was always there, and she was always with Walter. The fellow must have been mad, or else the little cat had some power of witchcraft in her. To neglect a woman like Lexie, and she his wife, for such an unwholesome, cold-blooded--however, she wasn't cold-blooded to him. I do think she loved him as far as she could love anybody. I know she turned against me as soon as ever he came home--regularly hated me, in fact--partly, I suppose, because I sided with Lexie, whom she hated more. Why, the very last time I ever saw her, when I went to say goodbye, she was deliberately burning a fichu thing of Venetian lace just because I had given it to her--a valuable piece, mind you, of a rare pattern, that I had been stupid enough to pay a lot of money for; stuffing it into the fire, she was, and ramming it down with the poker, as if it was so much dishcloth."
"An extraordinary way to show spite!" Mrs. Wingate
ejaculated. "And she did not scorn your offering in the first
instance?"
"It wasn't my offering. She almost wheedled it out of
me--admired it so much that for very shame I had to give it to her. It
wasn't meant for her at all."
"That makes it still more extraordinary. If it had been Mrs.
Walter's lace, I could understand it. For whom did you mean it,
dear?"
"I don't know. Not for her, at any rate. But
she got it, and seemed to think no end of it too--always wore it when she wanted to be extra smart. That very night she had had it on, over a blue silk dress. In a paroxysm of rage she just tore it off her shoulders and destroyed it. I asked her why, and she said because she did not want anything that reminded her of me. When I asked her why again, she said something implying that I had paid her attentions and then thrown her over. Which was a lie. But I was so upset myself that I didn't care what she said or what she thought. I left The Chase that night and went to the Himalayas, and I don't know where--the farthest off that I could get. And I never heard a word of the Desaillys from that day to this. Oh, yes, I heard that Sir Thomas was dead--that's all."
"But you haven't told me what happened, Billy?"
"Oh, nothing much happened. I stayed a little while the first
time--not long; you can't stay in a house when you see your host
growing cool to you--getting utterly unfounded suspicions of you into
his head. I went on to other places, and wandered about a bit; looked up
her people at Cambridge, to tell them about her and how she was settling
down. They were a nice family, none the worse for being
tradespeople--three jolly young sisters, who were so proud of her rise
in life; and when they asked me to stay a few days with them, I did, of
course. She didn't know I was there, but one
day--it was winter time, and I'd just come in from my old college chapel with two of the girls--we found her in the sitting-room, crying in her mother's lap as if her heart would break. She had come home because she could not bear it--Geraldine, you know--and said she was going to stay awhile and have a rest; but they were so awfully afraid she would make a breach with her husband and offend the Desaillys that they implored her not to. I went out of the room to leave them together, but presently they called me back, and she was quite recovered and calm. She made some excuse for her sudden visit, and said she must return before night--it was nearly night already--and would I look up the trains for her. She had the child with her, and, of course, she had remembered about his being the heir and belonging to The Chase in spite of her; and she was keener now than anybody to retrieve her false step. For it was a false step, and she, who was always so sensible and courageous, must have been fearfully treated to make her take it. I never knew what they did to her. They, I say. But Walter was a gentleman when not bewitched by that fiend of a girl.
"Well, I took her home. I had to, because the only man in her
family was ill, and she couldn't be allowed to knock about railway stations
alone at that hour. Besides, she was so perfectly innocent and unconscious
of wrong that she asked me to
escort her. We had the child with us, and we hardly spoke the whole way; she was full of her thoughts, so was I, neither of us could mention what they were, though we were such old friends. I wished with all my soul that I could leave her outside her gates, but I dared not suggest it; I had to go on right to the house, or put ideas into her head that she was above dreaming of. And Walter received us, and you can imagine how much he believed of the explanation we had to give; he just turned on his heel and walked away, leaving us standing together in the great hall. And I saw Geraldine Balcombe up in the gallery, looking down and smiling.
"Of course Lexie knew then. She was as white as a sheet. Poor
girl! Poor girl! But I never saw such bravery in a woman, and she was more
like a princess than ever. I had already arranged to sleep at the inn in
the village--the Desailly Arms, where we will put up now, if it is
still in existence--taking on the fly we had got at the station; and
she just quietly bade me good-night, and thanked me for taking such good
care of her; and I left her--left her alone to bear it all.
"However, I went to The Chase next day. I could not rest, and I
determined to have it out with Walter. So I did, and so lost control of
myself that I did her more harm than good, but she forgave me that. Look
here, Nettie, I will make a clean
breast of it--it is over and done with these twenty years, so you needn't be jealous--but I was hard hit. I was damned hard hit."
"And told her?"
"Good heavens, no! I'd have cut my throat sooner. But seeing her
in all that trouble--burning to help her, and not able to--I think she
got a notion, just at the last She encouraged me to travel. She was so
kind, never reproaching me, but I knew what she meant. She wished me to go
away, and never come back. And I did--for twenty years, at any rate.
This is the first time--what? Oh, you precious little noodle! You
don't mean to tell me you are jealous, after all? Now, Nettie, I'll let you
into another dead secret: for fifteen, at least, out of those twenty years
I haven't cared a single, solitary straw about her, not even enough to
inquire of anybody whether she was alive or dead. And surely to goodness
you don't suppose I am going to do it now?"
"You are a faithless wretch," Mrs. Wingate ejaculated,
wetting his cheek with the tip of an eyelash. "I suppose fifteen
other women--oh, I begin to see what I have done in marrying a
handsome husband! But one thing I insist on, Billy--I will see Lady
Desailly with my own eyes before we leave this place, and so shall you.
Call up that man who is going along the road, and ask him if the family is
home."
It was all but dark when he reappeared, and yet she saw at once that he
had had a shock.
"Ah," she cried sympathetically, "your Lexie is
dead!"
"Worse," he groaned, as he swung himself into the buggy.
"Unutterably worse! But I don't believe it. It's incredible. Nettie,
what do you think they say?--that she eloped years ago with a
foreigner who was staying in the house; that she left the child, who is now
a young man, and that
she took one of the most valuable of the family jewels with her--a diamond necklace, with five star-rubies in it. I remember it well. The old man, when he was reconciled to her, and wishing everybody to look up to her as if she had been born to the position, gave it to her and asked her to wear it; she had it on the very last time I ever saw her. This fellow--he is only a young keeper, speaking from hearsay and gossip--says Walter would not have her followed--scorned to interfere with her, both because he was too proud and because her lover had been his friend--and let the necklace go with her, and that nothing has been heard of either of them since. As if Lexie, of all people, would carry off property! I laughed at the idea. I told the fellow I didn't believe a word of such a story. I don't. I'll lay my life there's been a mistake somewhere."
"She was an impulsive woman," Mrs. Wingate remarked
thoughtfully. "See how she rushed home in a fit of impatience, and
repented the next moment and rushed back again. And perhaps they drove her
to extremities."
"It is conceivable," he returned, "she might have done
a mad thing in sheer desperation, though I should have thought she'd have
sooner killed herself. They say that she and the man were seen going off
together--though, if it was in the night, it may easily have been a
case of mistaken identity. But supposing
she left the child--she would have to do that if she wanted to get free herself, for the heir they must have recovered--which is sufficiently incredible, seeing what a devoted mother she was, she would certainly never have taken a scrap of Desailly property with her. That I will stake my head on, and every penny I possess."
"The man may have been the culprit there, Billy."
"Oh, it's awful!" he moaned, evidently cut to the heart.
"I wish I could see Walter himself. But he's in Scotland with his
son. This place is deserted--has been nearly all the time. The other
day they opened it just to celebrate the boy's coming of age in the great
hall, after some customs of the family; but it was all locked up directly
afterwards, and stands there empty and falling into decay. Walter lives in
London and abroad mostly, and when here, at the Dower House, a house near
one of the other gates, where an aunt of his used to live. The old folks
are both dead. There's a new rector too, but Geraldine Balcombe is alive
and married. Well, my pet, you must be dying of hunger and fatigue. Let's
be off to the Desailly Arms and a good supper, if they can give us one.
After all, it is no concern of ours, I suppose."
"It has occurred to me that it may concern us closely," Mrs.
Wingate said, in a matter-of-fact tone, no longer dreaming of jealousy.
"If that house is empty, Billy, and Sir Walter cares so little what
becomes of it, why shouldn't we try to find out whether
it won't suit us? There must be an agent here somewhere who could give us particulars, and through whom we might open negotiations for renting it, if we found it to our taste and not too appallingly expensive."
Billy confessed himself struck by the idea, but inclined to postpone the
consideration of it to a future hour. He was upset and preoccupied, also
wearying for his dinner. So they drove through the beautiful twilight,
tinged now with the haze of a rising moon, to an inn that he remembered,
and were shortly absorbed in beef and bottled porter, and the comforting
sensation of being safe and snug together, with the troubled world shut
out. There are times when happy people cannot be bothered to think of
anything but themselves.
But when the landlady brought the coffee, she was induced to linger and
be interrogated, whereby further details were added to the Desailly
romance.
"Yes, sir, I remember when Sir Walter brought his wife and child
to The Chase. I was kitchen-maid there at the time, but I don't call to
mind your face, sir. My husband's father was butler; perhaps he'd remember
you, only he's in his second childhood, and, being paralysed, can't make
himself understood. Mrs. Walter, as she was then, did not stay long; she
ran away within the year. And her husband, he was so set on her and so cut
up that he never was the same man afterwards. He never wanted to
marry again. Though lots of people tried to persuade him to get a divorce, he wouldn't."
"Was he very much cut up?" inquired Wingate gravely.
"They say so, sir. The servants who saw him were always speaking
of it. He seemed partly to blame himself, and I won't say that he's
perfection. You can't expect it of a gentleman in his position, with no
work to do to keep him out of mischief. He has brought young persons to the
Dower House at times, and we hear of goings-on in London that it's best to
take no notice of. But he did his duty by her, at any rate. He
made her an honest woman, in spite of everything; he wouldn't take the law
to her when she turned against him and disgraced a fine old family that had
done her only too much honour; and as for that poor abandoned child of
hers, why, he dotes on the very ground that Master Thomas walks on. Ah,
let's hope that dear young man will make a better choice than his father
did! He's the finest lad in the whole county, though he does come of a bad
mother."
"If you are speaking of Sir Walter's son by his wife, Miss
Alexandra Baird," said Wingate, slowly and with emphasis, "he
comes of a mother who was simply one of the best women that ever lived. I
had the privilege of knowing her well."
"Indeed, sir! But the best o' women don't do what she
did--not as a rule, sir--do they?"
The fat landlady, who regarded the peccadilloes of the male person with
such extreme indulgence, smiled austerely.
"I have yet to be convinced that she did do it," said Billy,
who, as he spoke, felt the hand of his little wife slipped into his, and
grasped it gratefully.
"As to that, sir, there's the evidence of parties that saw them go
off together. A lady staying in the house happened to be standing at her
bedroom window, which she had opened, because it was bright moon-light and
the garden looking so pretty, and she heard voices on the terrace
underneath, close to a door at the foot of a private staircase; and when
she looked down, there was Mrs. Walter and the young man, quite plain, so
as nobody could mistake them. She had on the same white cloak that she'd
left the hall with, the stairs and passages being draughty, and it slipped
off her shoulders, and the lady saw the diamond necklace shining. The young
man, he struck a match to see how to lock the door again, and that showed
their faces clear. And the best proof was that neither of them was ever
seen again, sir."
"And the lady did not give the alarm?"
"She said nothing about it because she hoped they'd come back
before they were found out and scandals made, and because Mrs. Walter was
in the habit of going to her family when she was in a temper with her
husband; and they did have words that
day. Sir Walter had his suspicions of the young man, and taxed her with it. They all thought at first that she'd gone to Cambridge, and the lady that knew she hadn't said the same, just out of kindness and to give the woman a chance. Besides, she couldn't bear to be the one to break the news. However, she had to do it at last, when they found out by letters that came for Mrs. Walter from her mother that she'd never been there."
"Poor mother!" Wingate ejaculated. "Nettie, we must go
and see her. I want to hear both sides."
"So do I," cried Nettie, with cordial sympathy.
"Dead, sir; dead, ma'am," said the landlady, "many
years ago; both her father and mother, and the business sold. There are no
Bairds in Cambridge now."
It was Nettie who asked the next and most important question.
"Mrs. Venn, was the lady you mention the only person who saw the
elopement with her own eyes?"
Mrs. Venn said she believed the lady was the only person who actually so
saw it, but a servant in the house--the baby's nurse--heard the
door of the private staircase shut. It was in the wing Mrs. Walter
occupied--a whole wing that old Sir Thomas had set apart for her and
her husband's use, so that they could live independently, as if in their
own house, when they felt disposed. The nurse had gone to bed in the
nursery with the child; the noise of the
door woke her, and she thought it was her master going into his dressing-room. But as it happened, Sir Walter--Mr. Walter as he was then--had gone to London unbeknown to her, and was away all that night--came home, poor man, to find the bird flown!"
"And who was that lady?" Mrs. Wingate inquired, in a tone of
voice that made her Billy sit up and prick his ears.
"Mrs. George Desailly, ma'am. She married a cousin of the
squire's. A good-for-nothing he is too, though he does belong to the
family, and stands next to Master Thomas too, worse luck."
Billy had heard already who Mrs. George Desailly was, and he seemed to
spring out of his seat. "Aha! I thought so--I thought so! Which
took place first, Mrs. Venn, her marriage or the elopement--the
alleged elopement?"
"The elopement, sir--years and years before. Miss Balcombe
married quite late in life--that is, late for a lady so good looking
and attractive."
"Any children?"
"Two, sir, only--a girl and boy. The poor little boy is not
quite right, they say, but of course she thinks the world of
him."
"And Walter swallowed all her damned lies? I beg your pardon; I
can't help using strong language. Because I can see, as plainly as that you
are standing there, that Mrs. George Desailly invented that elopement for
her own purposes. Don't you see it,
Nettie? You remember what I told you?"--with a significant nod.
"Sir," said Mrs. Venn, "you are like many other
people--speaking, evil of that lady without knowing anything about
her."
"I not know anything about her!" laughed Wingate grimly.
"Without knowing anything of the circumstances that, you say,
happened after your time. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Walter and she were the
best of friends. She has told me so herself."
"Oh," said Wingate. And he seemed to wink at Nettie from the
corner of a sombre eye.
"And she could have had no interest whatever in injuring Mrs.
Walter--in telling lies about her, as you call it."
"Unless her lies caused Mrs. Walter's husband to divorce
her."
"Which they didn't."
"No. But she could not have foreseen that."
"And never thought of such disgraceful things. Besides, sir, if
her story was an invention, how do you account for Mrs. Walter's
disappearance? She went away that night, and the young foreign gentleman
went away that night, and they've never been heard of since. That's the
truth, at any rate; and if you can find any explanation of it but the one
that anybody who knows the world--"
"I can find another without any trouble," Wingate
broke in. "The fellow may have been a villain--a foreigner generally is--and enticed her away, and murdered her for the sake of the necklace."
"Not one who loved her. The whole house knew that he loved her,
and that her husband had quarrelled with both of them because he'd found it
out."
Wingate's face fell slowly, and he heaved a restless sigh. "It is
strange--it is indeed strange!" he ejaculated. Then, with an air
of sudden resolution, he asked where Mrs. George Desailly might be found.
"I am going," said he darkly, "to the fountain
head."
Mrs. George, he was then informed, had no settled habitation of her own,
her husband being a rolling stone, living by his wits and from hand to
mouth, a frequenter of Continental gaming places and a sponger upon his
friends; but it so happened that she was at this moment staying at the old
rectory which used to be her home.
"They were both at the coming of age," said the landlady,
"though they weren't invited, and the squire was very angry when he
saw them there. He's the best of landlords, and kindness itself to
everybody else, but he does hate those George Desaillys so that it's like a
madness with him. The other squires don't think it looks well at all,
seeing that Mr. George is his own blood, and so near the title too. And his
poor wife--goodness knows she has troubles enough without Sir Walter
making more for her."
"What! Does he hate her too? You don't say so!"
"Like poison, sir. And all for nothing, I'm convinced. She once
invited young Master Thomas to stay with her when he was home for his
holidays and his father was away, and he got a bad cold, and told his
father in a letter that his sheets were that damp you could have wrung
them. Well, supposing they were damp--any careless hussy
of a housemaid might have done it, and the missus never known. Desailly
ladies don't make the beds. But Sir Walter, he got it into his head then
that she wanted to kill the boy so that her own might succeed, and now it's
a regular monomania with him. He keeps Master Thomas always under his eye,
and he's given orders that neither she nor her husband are to set foot on
the property. Any gatekeeper that lets them through even into the park is
to lose his place directly. I call it a shame--though he is Sir Walter
and my husband's landlord. She's a lady, like any other lady, and a
Desailly moreover, and a sweet, gentle creature, incapable of doing such
things as she's accused of. She was sitting in this parlour only.
yesterday, talking to me about it, and saying how she missed her dear
mother, and how nice it was to be in her childhood's home again. For my
part, I hate to see people despised and insulted just because they're poor.
Why shouldn't she walk in the park if she's a mind? And why shouldn't she
go into the house as well as the rats and mice? Now that she's here, she
just pines to wander alone through the old
rooms where she had such happy days when she was a girl, and she was asking me whether I could not manage it for her, through my husband, who's that trusted by the agent that he could get the keys at any time he wished. I'm sure I was willing enough, and I did all I could, but there's no man here that'll go against the squire. It went to my heart to see her pleading for such a little thing, and having to disappoint her. She said she supposed Sir Walter was afraid she'd steal something; but the tears were in her eyes, poor thing, and she trembled all over. There's nothing to steal except what nobody could carry away. The valuable small things are all well locked up, or at the Dower House, or in the bank. A burning shame, I call it."
"It is," said Wingate, smiling strangely. "And she is
staying at the rectory, you say?"
"Yes, sir; at least, she was yesterday. The rector now is Mr.
Martin, a bachelor gentleman; he was tutor to Master Thomas before he went
to Eton. He never saw Mrs. George till the other day, at the coming of age;
but he was told how the squire had treated her, and was very indignant, and
offered her his arm as she was leaving the hall, and asked her to honour
him by making use of his house."
"How did the squire treat her?" inquired Wingate. "I
used to know him pretty well, but I never thought him a man to be rude to
ladies."
"This was what he did," said Mrs. Venn. "She
and her husband came to The Chase because it was sort of open house at the coming of age--though the house is so empty and out of repair that only the great hall, the state drawing-room, and the kitchens were actually used--and because they hoped, she said, that on such an occasion the family might be reconciled. They wanted to congratulate Master Thomas, and to drink his health, and so make up all quarrels, and start fresh as friends. However, we noticed they were not at the banquet--the company this time was only the people on the estate, and a few friends of Master Thomas's, very different from the coming of ages that used to be--though we had seen them go in amongst the first, and it appears that Sir Walter didn't know they were there at all. But while the speeches were going on some one whispered to Master Thomas, and Master Thomas whispered to his father, and the squire looked as black as thunder, and as soon as the banquet was over ran up the stairs. They were not using the upper part of the house, and poor Mrs. George had taken the opportunity to have a quiet stroll through the rooms, the scenes of her happy days, poor thing! She was looking out of a window, and thinking of the past, when she used to be petted by Sir Thomas and my lady as if she were their own daughter, when up comes Sir Walter, and orders her out of the place just as if she was a common tramp. And she without even her husband to defend her. Mr. George had
changed his mind about speaking to his cousin before so many people, and had left while everybody was at the banquet, and gone back to London, so that she was all alone by herself. She says he abused her shameful, but there was nobody to hear what they said till the rector met them in the gallery over the hall. Master Thomas had told the rector what was going on, for you must know that he doesn't hold with the way his father treats Mrs. George, which is real scandalous, though I oughtn't to say it, being an old servant of the family. Mr. Martin, he ran upstairs to see what he could do, and there was poor Mrs. George crying, and Sir Walter calling Mr. Blackett, the agent, to come and lock all the doors, and give the keys to him. He says he wouldn't trust her not to lay dynamite about the place, and blow them all up--which shows how mad he is in his spite against her. For anybody can see that a gentler creature never walked. Mr. Martin, he says he won't break bread in the house again while Sir Walter is master, though he did give him the living; and Master Thomas looked so ashamed, poor young gentleman! They say he had words with his father afterwards, though they are that fond of each other that they're more like twin brothers than parent and child."
"This," remarked Wingate, "is strangely unlike the
Walter Desailly that I used to know. However--"
He looked at his watch, and then at his wife, and then at the landlady,
who was so enjoying her own loquacity.
"Can you tell me, Mrs. Venn, whether Sir Walter still keeps the
keys?"
Mrs. Venn supposed not, as he was out of the country. She thought Mr.
Blackett would have them, and was sure there would be no difficulty in
getting leave to look over the house, if Mr. Wingate wished to do so. It
was only Mrs. George who was shut out, lest she should plant dynamite upon
the premises.
"Well," said Billy, who craved impatiently for a pipe and a
quiet gossip with his wife, "what do you say to a little stroll
before turning in, Nettie? It is a lovely night, and I don't feel a bit
like sleep at present."
"Nor I," said Nettie, also anxious to dispense with the
landlady, and not knowing how to do it politely. "Supper has made a
new creature of me. I could walk miles. Only I'm afraid we might be keeping
Mrs. Venn up."
The landlady offered to leave a key under a doormat, and otherwise to
meet the wishes of a customer who had been at college with the squire, and
whose whole equipment betokened wealth, and of the pretty young wife who
was so considerate for other people She took them, with many apologies,
through back passages and a kitchen to show them the door, the
key, and the mat, and where they would find matches and their bedroom candle, incidentally bringing to their notice certain members of her family circle. These the strangers affected to ignore, from motives of delicacy, until a very old man, who was being helped to bed by a pair of stalwart grandchildren, actually blocked their path.
"This," said Mrs. Venn, "is my husband's father, that
must have been butler at The Chase when you were there, sir. But I suppose
you wouldn't have known him again. He's close on eighty-four, and was a
faithful servant of the family from the time he cleaned the knives when he
was only ten. Grandpa!"--raising her voice to a loud yell--
"this
gentleman--used--to--come--to--the--house--when--
you--were--there--Mr.--Win--gate--friend--of--
the--squire's--went--to--col--lege--with--him--
knew--the--lady--that--ran--a--way--"
"Hush-sh!" cried Wingate fiercely. And she stopped.
"We have to bawl at him, sir, to make him hear. But it's not much
use. He gets deafer and deafer, and his memory is quite gone. He won't know
you. Oh, but he does, though! Look at him!"
Grandpa was evidently acting in an unusual way. He pointed a claw-like
finger at Wingate's massive chest, glared up at him with his rheumy eyes,
wagged his head, made strange gabbling sounds, and pulled
at the arms supporting him, evidently in high excitement.
"Well, old gentleman, and how do you do?" Wingate jauntily
addressed him, taking the trembling hand and sawing it up and down.
"It is very flattering to me to think that I've changed so little.
Hey? What? Look here, Mrs. Venn, if I were you I'd get him off to bed as
soon as possible. He looks to me as if he were going to have a
fit."
The Venn family removed the patriarch, with soothing words to him and
apologies to the guest, explaining that the old man was quite childish, and
not accountable for his vagaries. And the bride and bridegroom escaped, to
their relief and pleasure, into the calm night.
The young lodge-keeper heard them talking, and came out to reconnoitre.
Wingate accosted him, asking leave to enter the enclosure. The request was
at once granted to an old friend of the squire's, who was exhorted to take
his own time, and return when it pleased him. The man had some business of
his own on hand, which would keep him up for an hour or two, and was
willing to wait upon the strangers' pleasure.
"We shall have time, then, to get a peep at the house,"
Nettie joyfully exclaimed. She was "dying," as she called it,
for that satisfaction.
"Perhaps, if we look sharp," said Billy. "But the
length of this avenue is about three times what it looks."
And they set off to walk it at a swinging pace, keeping the middle of
the grass, to be as far as possible from the black shadows of the woods on
either side. Nettie held tight to her stalwart husband's hand, and after a
little only spoke in low tones, glancing hither and thither in a furtive
way, with occasional jumps and starts; for the sense of mystery was upon
her--delightful certainly, enchantingly English, but a little uncanny,
all the same. Bushes to right and left rustled as they passed; twigs
snapped; owls went by with no sound of wings, phantom-like; couching forms
of deer arose, loomed for a moment, and disappeared. These latter were the
most romantic feature of The Chase to her Australian mind, but an antlered
buck in twilight, showing himself unexpectedly and merely as something
alive and large, brings, as she expressed it, one's heart into one's
mouth.
The spectacle of the old mansion, when they reached the inner enclosure
of garden surrounding it, enhanced this sense of phantasmal things, the
general awesomeness of the expedition and the hour. It was indeed the ideal
haunted house. Nettie said
she had seen the very "moral" of it, under that title, in an old volume of the Illustrated London News. Ivy cloaked embattled walls and hung ragged wreaths from projections of ornamental stonework; towers and chimney-stacks rose majestic from the mass, cutting large blocks out of the pellucid sky. Moss and weeds showed clear in the chinks of the flagged terraces, and unpruned growths from the once trim parterres overran the pillared balustrades and short flights of shallow steps leading from one level to another. A rusty gate hung awry on a broken hinge; gravel paths were all but obliterated; storm-strewn twigs and branches of trees lay where the wind had tossed them, bedded in rank grass; and over all this desolation the broad windows gazed blankly, from under their stone brows, like open eyes of the dead.
"What a change!" Wingate muttered, in an awed voice;
"oh, what a change! I cannot understand it. For the
boy's sake, if not for his own--for common decency's sake--he
might have kept such a beautiful place from going to rack and ruin like
this! He doesn't deserve to own it. Well, I don't think we'll try to make a
home here, sweetheart."
"Oh, no!" whispered Nettie, shivering within the arm he had
thrown around her.
Nevertheless, he looked about him with a keen business eye, trying to
measure the extent of the dilapidation, and what it would cost to put the
place
in habitable repair. And while thus engaged, detached for the moment from the sentiment of the scene, Nettie startled him with a sudden cry and a clutch upon his arm. In an instant she was within the rampart of that arm, as behind a padlocked door.
"Hullo!" he cried; "what's the matter?"
"Look!" she gasped. "Oh, look!"
He looked hurriedly hither and thither, not knowing what she meant.
"Hey? Where? I don't see anything."
"It's gone," she said, in the same dry-throated whisper.
"But I saw it quite plainly--in that great window--the one
hanging out on the wall up there."
"Saw what, child? Oh, this is getting on your nerves!"
"Billy, you may disbelieve me if you like, but I did
see it--a light like a candle--in that window at the end of the
wing. Watch; perhaps we shall see it again."
They stared steadily for several minutes, and saw no light except the
moonlight, which was very clear and bright. In the silence they heard
rustlings in the bushes near them, and, above all other noises, the
thumping of their hearts.
"That," said Billy, in a low voice, "is the wing where
Lexie lived. The big window belongs to what used to be her bedroom--a
great room, that was three parts sitting-room, one of the finest in the
house. If you really saw a candle in it, of course
some one must be there. But they certainly told me it was all shut up."
As he spoke they simultaneously detected a figure gliding across a
moon-lighted corner of the terrace beneath the window. It was such a shadow
of a figure, and came and went so swiftly, that they barely identified it
as human, and were unable to distinguish sex. Nettie smothered a shriek in
her husband's breast.
"I say, this looks very suspicious," he exclaimed excitedly,
while trying to soothe her alarm. "There are some little games going
on that the authorities don't know anything about, evidently.
Poachers--burglars--somebody taking advantage of the empty house
for unlawful purposes."
"Oh, Billy, come away, come away! They might see us, and you are
unarmed, and we are so far from help!"
"Nonsense, pet! Don't be a little goose. Well, we'll go at once,
dear--only just let me run up and see where that fellow went to,
first. It would be cowardly to leave them to do no one knows what mischief,
and not lift a hand to prevent it. You stay here in shelter, and I'll be
back in two minutes."
But Nettie, mustering a fair stock of native courage, declared that if
he must go on such an errand, she would go too. Never would she be
separated from her husband, whatever happened. They would die together, if
need were.
Wingate would have preferred to make a sortie by
himself--it would have been the sooner over, and he could have dealt summarily with any difficulty encountered; the presence of his wife made an irksome caution necessary. However, her wish was law; and he lifted her over the rusted gate upon which they had been leaning, and set her little feet upon a path that led, by two flights of massive steps, to the terrace under the wing that had been Lexie's private dwelling, and the particular window in which Nettie had seen the light. Here they proceeded softly, the man holding his companion behind him with a firm grip, and keeping one eye on the window and the other on the bushes to right and left, until they reached the moonlit corner where the figure had been seen. Here Billy stopped and pounced upon something--something that lay coiled on the weedy pavement under the shadow of the balustrade like one of his native snakes. He pulled it out into the light, and lo, a rope of many fathoms, new and strong, with a long thin cord attached to it, weighted at the end--similar to the tackle with which ships make fast to tug or wharf, but of inferior weight and quality.
"Burglars, of course," he remarked, delighted with his find.
"Some of them must have got in, and others are outside; every window
on the ground floor is barred like a prison, so I suppose they are hauling
themselves into that upper one with the rope. But how the dickens did the
first one get through? It projects so far from the wall that the ivy
wouldn't
help. They must have got the line over something, but I can't see what. And the casements are shut. There are two, in the lower part, opening like doors. Lexie loved to have them open; she was so fond of fresh air! By the way, there's the door of the little staircase that they say she eloped by; is that shut, I wonder?"
It was--hard and fast. And, when he ran half round the house, and
ran back, before Nettie had time to feel deserted, he found all doors and
windows wearing the same impenetrable look. And no sign of life was
visible, nor further trace of the supposed marauders. In spite of which,
common prudence dictated a retreat under the circumstances.
"If I were alone," said Billy, "I'd get to the bottom
of this, but I can't expose you to the tender mercies of a burglar at bay.
The best thing to be done is to get you safe to the inn, and then come back
with what men I can muster, and thoroughly search the place. We will take
the rascals' rope with us, at any rate, and trust they haven't got
another."
He quickly made a coil of the rope and slung it over his shoulder. With
the other arm he embraced his wife and propelled her homeward. Along the
cracked and weedy flags, down the moss-grown steps, through the wilderness
of a garden they scurried, as if themselves detected housebreakers; and
neither of them enjoyed the romance of the situation in the least. Bright
as the moon was, their path
to the rusty gate, through the rank, dank shrubberies, was a more fearsome passage than before; and when, at a spot where the branches closed above their heads, they heard a rustle and a movement as of some creature tracking them, Nettie's heart failed her, and she screamed aloud. Billy thereupon dropped his load of rope, clasped his wife to his breast, planted his feet firmly, and glared from side to side.
"Who's there?" he called sharply.
No answer. No sound.
"Who's that?" he repeated, in a still louder tone.
They listened with all their tingling ears, but heard nothing.
"A rabbit, or a bird, or perhaps one of the deer out of the
woods," he murmured soothingly. "Why, child, what's come to
you?"
But his own voice was a trifle unsteady. Eager to stand and fight any
danger that he could see, this shadow business unnerved him.
A mile in twenty minutes was their rate of travel down the long chase to
the lodge, and the little star that was Abel Rowe's parlour lamp, on which
they kept their eyes fixed steadily all the way, was a great comfort to
them. The young keeper came out to meet them, and speaking both at once and
rather breathlessly, they poured the story of their adventure into his
ears. He received it without visible surprise or concern, and did not agree
with Mr. Wingate that a midnight expedition was necessary.
"Oh, you saw that light in the window!" he
exclaimed, with much gravity. "I was wondering whether you would. I
was out last night, looking at some traps, and saw it myself; and several
other people have seen it. The conclusion they've come to is that the old
house is haunted, sir. I don't hold with ghosts myself, but that's the
common view."
"Haunted be blowed!" was Wingate's rude rejoinder; and he
showed the rope, which was mysterious without being supernatural, and
described how they had seen a man "scoot" round a corner of the
house. "Besides," said he, "if ghosts were allowed to
carry matches and candles, they'd burn the places down."
"I suppose there are ghosts of lights as well as ghosts of people,
if there are ghosts at all," argued Abel Rowe. "Be that as it
may, no mortal hand lit that light you saw, sir, if it was in the big
window of the west wing you saw it. Because why? The day after it was first
seen, Mr. Blackett and a whole posse of people,
thinking just as you do that burglars were in the house, went in and all
over it, and tried every lock and bolt, and thoroughly ransacked the whole
place; and they proved that nobody could possibly have been there.
Especially in that room where the window is; that was locked up tighter
than any. Sir Walter doesn't like to have people prying there. It used to
be his wife's room."
"There must be a hiding-place in it," said Wingate.
"There is not, sir, begging your pardon. Every bit of wall and
floor was tapped and tested; some of the boards were ripped up. Mr.
Blackett satisfied himself that there was no hiding-place."
Then they had got out of the window with the rope in the
meantime."
"No, sir; for the casements were found fastened on the
inside."
"Well, but here's the rope to speak for itself. It was lying close
under the window. It is quite new--just out of the shop--no doubt
bought on purpose. What do you suppose it was doing there? And the fellow
we saw running? Must he be a ghost too?"
"I can't account for him, nor for the rope," Mr. Rowe
admitted, fingering the latter in an abstracted way. "I thought
nobody cared to go near the place of a night, since there's been this talk
of the ghost in the window. I'll see Mr. Blackett about it in the
morning--"
"I will see him also," broke in Wingate, with a significant
glance at his wife. "And I will keep the rope, if you please. It is
my evidence, you see. I intend to sift this thing to the bottom, ghost and
all."
He was about to leave, when Mrs. Rowe, the keeper's mother, having risen
from bed and dressed in haste, in order to find out what was doing at this
hour of the night, entered the parlour, curtsied, looked from one to
another with an expectant smile, and
then caught sight of the coil of rope and pounced upon it.
"Why, if this ain't the clothes line that was stole last
night!" she ejaculated, with round eyes and uplifted hands.
"Why, Abel, wherever did you find it?"
"This gentleman found it, mother, in the garden at The
Chase."
"Lor! Right away up there! Whatever--"
"Was it yours?" interposed Wingate eagerly.
"No, sir, the rector's. His housekeeper bought it new last week,
and the very first time she used it she had it stole. Strange to say, the
linen that was a-hanging on it--for myself, I don't believe in leaving
your clothes out all night--was left on the grass, and only the line
took."
"Only the line was required," said Billy. "But how do
you know it is the same?"
"Because there wasn't another new clothes line in the
place."
"I suppose rope is used for other purposes. Probably this was
brought to The Chase from quite another direction."
"And to The Chase, of all places!"
She desired ardently to enter upon a long discussion, covering the
matter of the ghost, but sudden reticence had fallen upon the visitor. He
affected surprise to find it near upon midnight, and concern that his wife
was so late up after a journey, and took a hasty leave, carrying his rope
with him. As soon
as they were both upon the high-road, out of ear-shot of the lodge, he said to his wife, solemnly,--
"Nettie, either that fellow is in league with the burglars, or
Geraldine Balcombe has some game on hand. One or the other."
"Then it must be Geraldine Balcombe," said Nettie,
"for I am convinced that Abel Rowe is as honest as the
day."
"How are you convinced?" her husband asked.
"By the look of his face--the way he
speaks--everything."
"Woman's instinct!" laughed Billy. "Now I
think his manner most suspicious: his disinclination to have the matter
inquired into--his preposterous suggestion that the candle-man is a
ghost--everything, as you would say. But things look black against the
rector's house too. We will interview Mrs. George Desailly to-morrow
morning, and get particulars concerning the larceny of the clothes line.
I'm awfully curious to see her, apart from that. I wonder how she'll
receive me, and what she looks like now? She was uncommonly pretty as a
girl, in her white-cat style. And I'll make her tell that story about Lexie
before I've done--and watch how she does it. I can't get it out of my
mind somehow that it's all a pack of lies."
"But what then, Billy?"
"Oh, God knows! I believe she was enticed away by that foreign
fellow--on some charitable errand
perhaps--and murdered for the necklace. That, to me, is far more likely than the other thing. And they never seem to have thought of it! Fancy, never thinking of it, and never lifting a hand or taking a step to find her!"
"I suppose they had more reason than you know of," suggested
Nettie, saying to herself, with an inward sigh, "How he harps upon
that woman! How impossible he thinks it for her to have done
wrong!"
They found Mrs. Venn's door-key under the mat, and slipped through the
house to bed, and tried to sleep. Nettie succeeded, for she was only
twenty-two and her heart was at rest--she did not seriously concern
herself about her handsome husband's past; Billy declared in the morning
that the feather mattress had defeated him, and that if they stayed another
night in that place he should lie on the floor. He took a nip of whisky
before breakfast, to clear his brain of morbid thoughts that had haunted
him through the dark hours.
Their buggy having no seat for a servant, and the English-feeling
morning--a mixture of delicate mist and sunshine--being more
inviting than usual, they agreed to do their errands to the rectory and the
agent's house on foot. And they set forth early, without confiding their
business and late experiences to their garrulous landlady, Wingate being
still under the impression that a police case impended in which anybody
might be involved.
Their first call was upon the interesting Geraldine Balcombe that was,
and Wingate was almost certain that he saw her face at an upper window as
they passed through the well-remembered garden, where the beech tree under
which she used to make afternoon tea was beginning to turn yellow, and the
myriad chrysanthemum buds opening into bloom. Great, therefore, was their
disappointment when the genial rector, who received them in his study,
presently intimated that she was too unwell to come downstairs. His mention
of the fact that she had seen the linen taken from the lost line, when
gazing at the moon from her bedroom window--unfortunately assuming
that it was the housekeeper who, for fear of thieves, was bringing it
indoors--saved Wingate the awkwardness of introducing her name, and
gave him his opportunity to explain that she was an old friend. His
touching account of his intimacy with her and her family in past
years--of how he had been a guest in this very house, treated like a
son, and how interesting he found it to return to the old scenes and revive
the happy memories connected therewith--caused Mr. Martin to send a
message to Mrs. Desailly, with the expectation that she would make a
special effort in response; but her answer, long delayed, was that she
begged Mr. Wingate would excuse her, and the report of the servant to the
effect that the lady had had a kind of fainting fit at the moment of
hearing his name.
Wingate expressed his sorrow for this state of things, looking
becomingly grave, but revealing a certain elation at the back of his
gravity to Nettie's watchful eye. His air of sympathy and his claim to old
friendship had the anticipated result of drawing confidences from Mr.
Martin which he would not have reposed in a stranger.
"I daresay," said he, "you are aware of the sad
dissensions in the Desailly family?"
Wingate said he was, implying a complete knowledge of all their
affairs.
"She suffers terribly," the rector continued, shaking his
head; "more than Sir Walter can have any idea of, or he would never
treat her so cruelly as he does."
"I cannot realize his character, as you and others paint
it," said Wingate. "I was his chosen comrade for years when we
were both young men, and never knew a kinder-hearted fellow. He must have
greatly changed."
"He has, evidently. To hound a poor, weak woman into her grave or
the mad-house--no man worthy of the name of man, let alone a
gentleman, and one with a kind heart, could stoop to such cowardly, such
infamous conduct."
The warmth with which this speech was delivered suggested to Wingate
that the fascinating Geraldine had not yet outgrown her fascinations.
"I am quite sure," he said, "that my old friend could
not stoop to that, however changed. There
must be a misunderstanding somewhere. Possibly you are not acquainted with all the circumstances."
"Pardon me. Mrs. Desailly has herself done me the honour to
confide the whole matter to me, without reserve."
"I see," murmured Billy, with another look at his wife, who
sat out of the discussion as far as her host's politeness allowed.
"And I have the evidence of my own eyes, Mr. Wingate--of her
terrible state of health, the result of these constant trials. They have so
preyed upon a highly nervous constitution that the brain seems to have
become incapable of rest. She is a martyr to insomnia in its most acute
form."
"I am really awfully sorry to hear it," remarked Wingate, in
a commiserating tone, and with all his wits on the alert.
"Yes. She has taken to walking in her sleep--when she does
sleep--which greatly alarms me. And one doesn't know what to do in
such a case, especially in my situation. I am afraid to lock her in, lest
she should fall out of the window or have an accident with the candle. She
naturally, objects to have a servant with her at night, and opiates she has
a horror of--so have I. I have known the habit of taking morphia to
entirely destroy all moral principle and self-restraint. I would rather any
one belonging to me poisoned himself outright than take a single dose of
it."
"You have really proved the somnambulism?" Wingate queried
gently.
"Beyond a doubt. I met her on the road a few nights ago, hours
after she had retired to bed--I was called from mine to attend a dying
parishioner--and she told me she had no idea how she had got there. It
is a most serious symptom in her case. I have tried to impress this upon
her, and to persuade her to seek medical advice."
"And won't she?"
"She wishes to give herself a fair trial of the country first. She
thinks her native air and the peace and quiet of her present life are doing
her good, and will soon restore her altogether. I am bound to say I don't.
I think the disorganization of the nervous system increases daily. Indeed,
if her husband does not come very soon, I must send for him, or else for a
good doctor, for my own satisfaction."
"Does she expect her husband soon?"
"Any day. But he is rather an erratic person, as perhaps you know.
I proposed to fetch her daughter to keep her company, but she won't hear of
it. She thinks it bad for the child to be shut up with a nervous invalid.
Perhaps it is. But I am sure it is advisable to have some one to stay with
her. It would relieve me of much responsibility, and keep her from brooding
and fretting so much."
"I should insist upon it," said Wingate, "if I were
you. By the way, you don't think she may have taken the clothes line herself, when walking in her sleep?"
"Oh, no; certainly not. She was awake and looking from the window
when she saw the thief, and that was one of her better nights. But last
night she must have been out again. We did not hear her moving, but my
housekeeper says there is no doubt about it. She judges by the state of her
clothes and shoes. And she seems this morning to be prostrate with
exhaustion, though she stayed in the house all yesterday."
"I should certainly get a doctor at once," said Wingate,
rising, "and make him insist on her being watched at night. Your
housekeeper looks a lady-like person; Mrs. Desailly could not object to her
having a bed in her room, under the circumstances. But the best thing, of
course, would be to send for her husband to come and take her
home."
"I cannot be inhospitable," the poor rector faltered,
"if the change of air is really doing her any good. But--well, I
must talk matters over with her when she gets up."
"And pray command me, if I can be of any use," said Wingate.
"As an old friend, you know--"
"Oh, thank you, thank you! Where are you staying? Won't you take
lunch with me? Pray do--you and Mrs. Wingate--and perhaps Mrs.
Desailly might then be well enough to come down. She
will be deeply disappointed, I am sure, to miss seeing you. Everything connected with her happy girlhood is so intensely interesting to her. And I should like to show you the church and the improvements I have made. You will find things looking very different from what they were in poor old Balcombe's time."
The visitors pleaded the pressing nature of their business with the
squire's agent, which turned the conversation upon the burglars, the ghost,
and contingent matters, delaying their departure for another half-hour. But
engagements were entered into for an exchange of hospitalities when
convenient, while the rector walked with them to his garden gate, gathering
flowers for Nettie by the way; and before separating cordial offers of
assistance in their respective difficulties were provisionally accepted on
both sides. As Wingate shook hands with his new friend, promising to call
again later to report progress in the affair of the rope, he saw a face in
an upper window, peeping from behind a blind. While he tried to draw
Nettie's attention to it, it disappeared.
"But I know that profile," he said, when they were again
upon the road, "and I see the whole thing as clear as day. It isn't
burglars--it's some fight going on between Walter and her--I
should imagine for the possession of something he's got locked up at The
Chase. Compromising documents, perhaps.
Well, though it doesn't seem exactly chivalrous, and though I don't owe him any service, but quite the contrary, I am going to be on Walter's side. And we'll stop here, Nettie, if you have no objection, till we get through with the affair."
"Oh!, I have no objection," Nettie cried heartily;
"far from it! I wouldn't go away now for fifty pounds. I never was so
interested in anything in all my life."
only do so with difficulty, owing to physical ailments.
The story of the rope, the candle in the window, and the visible figure
of the supposed burglar was told again, but the information gathered at the
rectory was withheld. Wingate said he thought it his duty to report what he
had seen; he also desired to assist in the search which he presumed would
immediately be set on foot to discover what was wrong.
"You may not be aware," he said stiffly, "that I am an
old friend of Sir Walter Desailly's."
Mr. Blackett replied that he was quite aware of it, still transfixing
the visitor with steadfast, steely eyes.
"I remember your coming here, Mr. Wingate, rather more than twenty
years ago--it was your last visit, was it not?--and also your
departure. Also your departure, Mr. Wingate."
"You have the advantage of me," Wingate returned, with his
easy courtesy; "I have no recollection of having seen you
before."
"I was Sir Thomas's agent, in succession to my father," said
the old man. "I was cognisant, sir, of all the family
affairs."
"The family affairs, I hear, took a sad turn after I left,"
remarked Wingate.
Mr. Blackett did not answer, but stared more strangely than before.
Wingate thought the look referred to the elopement, and added, with warmth:
"But I, for one, refuse to believe that Mrs. Walter Desailly was to blame. I knew her well, and never knew a better woman--a perfect English lady, if ever there was one, in spite of her people being shop-keepers. The circumstances may be as they have been described to me, but I am convinced that the popular theory is a wrong one."
The agent seemed much agitated by this reference to the great scandal.
Twice he opened his mouth to speak, and shut it without doing so; the
gnarled hand on his writing table closed and unclosed sharply; he drew his
brows together; his eyes flashed upon Nettie's pretty figure, which had not
yet been invited to rest itself.
"You are married to this lady?" he jerked out.
Wingate bowed, while he wondered if it were not his duty to feel
insulted by the question on her behalf.
"I must apologise for asking it," the old man continued,
with a tremble in his voice, "but will she mind leaving us for a
short time? There are some important matters--the drawing-room is just
across the hall--I think my wife is at home--"
He hoisted himself with difficulty out of his chair to reach a bell
button, but before he could get at it, and before Wingate could explain
that Mrs. Wingate had an equal interest with him in the proceedings, the
lady had disappeared.
"I will wait for you on the road, Billy," said she,
with fiery cheeks and an icy smile, and next minute was out of the house and marching along the highway in wrath. "If these are your English manners," she intended to say to Billy when she saw him again, "give me Australia." For it seemed to her that he was too much in the habit of glorifying England and its institutions (including its women) at the expense of his own country.
She had promised to wait for him on the road, and did so for nearly
three-quarters of an hour, learning every hedgerow leaf and every blade of
wayside grass by heart, exhausting all the charms of the harvest landscape.
But when the little watch pinned to the breast of her neat tweed coat, as
also an inward monitor of equal infallibility, informed her that it was one
o'clock and lunch time, she decided to leave him to his devices. Doubtless
he and that rude old man were so absorbed in their reminiscences of the
incomparable Mrs. Walter as to forget that a mere every-day young woman
with an appetite existed. She returned to the inn, ordered the cutlets to
be served and the bottle of Bass opened, and sat down to begin her meal
alone--for the first time since she had been Billy's wife.
"I really could not wait any longer," she called out, when
the sitting-room door opened to admit the laggard. But a glance at her
husband's face caused her voice to change its note. "Oh, my
dear boy! what is the matter with you?"
Instead of falling upon the beer and cutlets, Billy fell in a headlong
fashion upon the horsehair sofa, planted his elbows on his knees, dropped
his face in his hands, and sobbed audibly--one sob only, no more, but
enough to pierce her heart. She was instantly beside him, trying to span
his huge back with her little arm, to pull his strong fingers from their
tight clasp upon his brow.
"Darling! darling! Tell me! Tell your Nettie! What is it, precious
one?" She cooed like a courting turtle-dove, pressing her cheek to
his shoulder and his ear.
"Oh, Nettie, I have had a blow! I have had an awful shock!"
he groaned, with a long up-drawing of the breath. "A bolt from the
blue, and no mistake!" He raised himself and looked at her, with
something wild in his eyes. "Who do you think the foreigner was,
Nettie?"
"The--the man she el--"
"Me--me!" he burst out, in the grammar of
strong emotion. "They actually believed that she ran away with
ME!"
"And called you a foreigner?" cried Nettie. "What
cheek! Just like these ignorant English people! As if we were not just as
much English as they are!"
"But don't you see, child? They have been supposing we went away
together, because it seems we were missed at the same time. That cursed
talk
about foreigners has been putting me off the scent; but I might have known--I did know--that Geraldine's tale was a pack of lies--of a piece with her tale of how she saw the linen taken off the clothes line. It was she who swore she had seen us sneaking away together, and made Walter believe it--when no one knows better how I went than she does, for she accompanied me part of the way. Oh, that little devil is at the bottom of it all!"
"But where, then--"
"Ah, that's the point! that's the point! That's the awful part of
it! If Lexie didn't elope with me--as certainly she didn't, and no
other man has been mentioned in the case--what, in the name of God,
did become of her?" He struck his knee with a clenched
fist. "But I'll find out, Nettie; I'll find out, if I take years to
do it, and it costs me my last penny."
"Sir Walter will surely see to that," said Nettie softly.
"She was his wife."
"We have telegraphed for Walter," said Wingate, for the
first time turning an eye upon the luncheon table. "Yes, of course he
will see to it; for I find he really did appreciate her, appearances
notwithstanding, and from the moment he lost her turned against Geraldine
as if he suspected something, and has shunned and hated her ever since. But
we can help him. There is plenty to do before he comes. That woman is up to
mischief at this moment,
though we don't know what. It can't be anything that concerns poor Lexie now, but it may lead us to a clue. We've got to hunt for all fresh clues now. And Blackett is as convinced as I am that our best course is to stick like wax to her. Her story, you see, being proved untrue, is damning evidence against herself--looks as if she either put poor Lexie out of the way, or knows who did. I am going to have a policeman this afternoon to go over the house with me, and I am going to sleep in that room where we saw the candle--Lexie's room--to-night."
"I with you," said Mrs. Wingate, putting a tumbler of fresh
beer into his unsteady hand.
"My pet, I can't expose you--"
"Now, Billy, let us understand one another," she broke in,
with an inflexible air to which he was unaccustomed; and forthwith she
stated a case in words that made an impression upon him. The result was
what Rudyard Kipling would call an "interlude" of unwonted
duration and intensity--a general concession of her right, as a bride
on her honeymoon, to anything she liked to ask for, on the part of the
husband; and on the part of the wife, a renewed conviction that he was the
best and dearest of living men, despite his little weaknesses. She sat on
his knee while he ate his lunch as best he could with one hand; then she
filled his pipe, and put a cushion under his head.
"Now," said she, "try if you can remember all
that happened that night at The Chase. It may help us to an idea. You never told me before, by the way, that Miss Balcombe was with you when you left, and that is a most important detail."
"Well, it was this way, Nettie. You know I had a scrimmage with
Walter. I wanted to explain about the Cambridge journey, and to stand up
for Lexie, and it's always a mistake to begin putting things of that sort
into words, especially as we were situated. I stood up for her too
much--because I saw he was taking it all wrong--and I lost my
temper, and said things I wouldn't forgive myself, if any man said them to
me. As for him, he couldn't have insulted me more than he did. So, of
course, there it stood. That was in the morning. There was nothing for me
but to clear out as soon as possible, and I went back to the inn--this
inn, and this room too, only different people. I packed up for London, had
some bread and cheese, and started to go by the next train. But just as I'd
settled in my corner, I saw Walter's dog-cart tearing along the road, and I
knew he was trying to catch the train too; and I hated the thought of
travelling with him, or near him, after the row we'd had;
besides--well, I'll tell you the honest truth, Nettie--it was a
chance to have a word with Lexie that I could not resist. I didn't do
anything behind Walter's back that I wouldn't have done before his face,
but for her sake I couldn't go near her while he was there misjudging us,
and
it was a cowardly thing to make off without even bidding her good-bye--looked like deserting her in her trouble, and owning to wrong things. At any rate, I jumped out of the carriage, and kept out of sight until Walter got in. Then, when the train was gone, I went outside, and spoke to the groom. He said his master had been called to town on business, but was expected back next morning. My luggage had gone on in the van, so I telegraphed to London to have it looked after on arrival, and walked across the fields to The Chase. I daresay they made capital out of all that afterwards."
"You may be certain that they did," said Nettie, "and
you can't blame them either."
"No, of course. Still, you mustn't forget that The Chase was Sir
Thomas's house then, and not Walter's, and that the old gentleman and I
were the best of friends. He was out when I arrived, and I just asked
straight for Lexie, so as not to waste time. The man took me to her
boudoir--she didn't use it much, because she liked her big bedroom to
sit in--and no one came to disturb us. We had a--a
talk--"
He paused absent-mindedly. The silence was broken by a plaintive little
sigh,--
"Ah, Billy! Billy!"
"Yes, pet, I know. But it was twenty years ago, and I've got over
it this many a day."
"I don't believe you have got over it yet, Billy."
"You are the last person who should say that, or think it,"
he remonstrated, drawing her to his knee again, and settling her
comfortably in a favourite place and pose. "And, besides, she's
dead--I know she is dead. Nothing but death would have taken her from
the child. You can't be jealous of a dead woman."
"Oh, can't I? But I won't, Billy--indeed, I won't! It was
only my nonsense. You are mine now, and that's all I care about. Listen,
dear, I've thought of something. There is that lake where you caught the
big pike--I expect that, being so unhappy, she committed suicide by
drowning herself in it. That would account for her sudden disappearance,
and her never being seen or traced. Billy, I have thought of another thing.
Perhaps it was because--but, no, I won't say it!"
"Say it, Nettie."
"She might have been broken-hearted at losing you."
Wingate drew in his breath, and went red and pale, but controlled
himself instantly.
"No," he said, reluctantly impartial, "there was no
motive of that sort. I'll tell the honest truth, Nettie--I did let
myself go that last time that we were together, though I tried my utmost
not to. But she never did; on the contrary, she pulled me up in her firm,
kind way, lectured me like a mother she did--tried to make me see
there were good things still
to live for, and that she trusted me for a gentleman, and--and so on. Oh, she was not the sort of person to play fast and loose with matrimony and motherhood--not she; nor yet of the flimsy stuff that suicides are made of. Still, it's an idea. When Walter comes, of course he'll leave no stone unturned, and the lake must be emptied if necessary. But then why did Geraldine concoct that elaborate story? She must have had some object."
"She was staying in the house, you say?"
"Yes; and, unfortunately, knew about my having gone away before
lunch, and come back after Walter had left the house, and being shown up to
Lexie's private sitting-room, and staying such a long time with
her--things she could twist and turn to suit her tale. I did not know
how late it was till I heard the dressing-bell ring, and then, when I tried
to get away quietly, I ran up against the old lady and Geraldine, who were
pacing up and down the terrace in the evening sun. They were both ready for
dinner, and the girl had got that lace on which I afterwards found her
stuffing into the fire--"
"Ah! I want to hear more about that lace," Nettie
interposed, with the air of a detective on a strong scent.
"Oh, that was nothing; I must have offended her in the course of
the evening," said Wingate absently. "I know I was a surly
boor, not fit for ladies' company; but they made me stay. The old people
knew nothing of any quarrel, and couldn't understand why I should make off just before dinner, and pooh-poohed my excuse that I wasn't dressed. It was weak of me, I know, but I let myself be tempted; and after all Lexie went upstairs while the squire and I were talking over our wine, and never showed again. I particularly wanted to say something to her that I had forgotten, so I stayed late. I went to the smoking-room with the old man. At last he proposed that I should remain for the night, and some things of Walter's were put out for me, and we went to our rooms, and the house was closed. Oh, yes; I know how contemptible it was! But at the time every other feeling was swallowed up in my longing to put right a misunderstanding that I thought Lexie was labouring under--to have all straight between us before I went away for good; in fact, I wanted to tell her I meant to try and do, and be, all she wished. I thought, as it was the last time--but I was an ass and a fool, and very nearly a villain, too. I might have compromised her worse; perhaps I did. Somebody else besides Geraldine Balcombe--somebody who wasn't a liar--may have seen me messing about the west wing at three in the morning--"
"What? You don't surely mean to say--"
"No, of course I don't. All I did was to write a letter to her,
and take it to her boudoir and slip it into a blotting case on her writing
table, walking
softly in my socks, so as not to wake anybody. I made sure that the whole place was dead asleep, for I hadn't heard a sound for hours. But as I was getting back to my room, I saw a glimmer of light through the crack of a door--a curtain rather. There's a queer little circular room at an angle of the stairs where they run into the gallery that goes round the great hall; it's like one huge bay window with the bay enclosed; a big portière hangs across the entrance, which you can loop back or not, as you like; just the little nook for sitting out dances in, if there were balls in the hall, which would be a magnificent place for them, with a wooden floor. It isn't a private room, and yet it is; and they always had a fire there in fire weather. Having windows all round--the room seemed to be built of the stone mullions, with a little churchy ceiling--it was beautifully light and cheerful, and it had a lovely view. We were always meeting there on our way to other rooms, and going downstairs to dinner, and so on. There were two or three lounge chairs in it, and a small table--no room for other furniture. Lady Desailly used to read the Times there of a morning, and sometimes have afternoon tea there, when there was no company, instead of in the hall. Well, though it wasn't cold yet, the fires were all going, and there had been one in this little room that evening. I had been there to look for Lexie after dinner, and saw it burning. And it was here where I saw the light at three in the
morning. The curtain was down, but just one ray came through, like a finger. It seemed to me like a finger beckoning me to her. I made sure that she was there, and I stole up without a sound and put the curtain back a little. I had not undressed, of course."
"And saw Miss Balcombe burning the Venetian lace?"
"Yes. She was standing over the fireplace, with a candle in one
hand and the lace in the other. She was holding it over the flame, and it
was flaring and frizzling up, very nearly all burnt. I could see she had
just taken it off, because otherwise she was fully dressed as when she left
the drawing-room; the blue bodice was plain and bare, and the silk was torn
where the lace had been stitched on, and wrenched off
anyhow--"
"Billy dear, you think nothing of this lace business, but
I think it is the most suspicious of all the features of the
case. Why should she have burnt her own lace that she was so
eager to get, and so proud of when she did get it? And why secretly at
three o'clock in the morning? You said she did it in a fit of rage with
you, but she would not have been in a fit of rage--that sort of
rage--for hours and hours all by herself, with you or anybody. What
had she been doing in the meantime, do you suppose? Billy, do you know how
I read the riddle? There was blood on that lace."
Wingate shuddered. "Oh, don't talk of blood!" he implored.
"Besides, in that case, there would have been blood elsewhere. There
was none on her dress, I know, and evidently none was found. Blood is a
thing that cries out anywhere. The least trace would have altered
everything and set them hunting."
"Did she have a guilty look when you surprised her?"
"I don't know what you call a guilty look. Of course it gave her
an awful start when she heard the curtain move and saw me watching her.
Anybody would have looked scared under the circumstances at that unearthly
time o' night. She gave a loud catch of the breath, and then dashed the
lace into the coals and rammed it in with the poker. There was still a
little red fire left, and it caught, and was consumed directly. I think she
was anxious that I shouldn't see it was my present to her, but I came a
little too soon."
"And how did she explain herself?"
"At first she kept her back to me and said nothing. I was
embarrassed too. I would have crept away when I found it was she and not
Lexie; but when I saw she had seen me, and saw what she was doing, I went
in. I made believe that I was glad of the opportunity to say good-bye to
her before leaving in the morning, as I should probably never come back
again. The fact was, I guessed she knew pretty well about me and Lexie, and
I knew she was furiously
jealous at having to play second fiddle, and I wanted, for Lexie's sake, to square her if I could. So I tried to be friendly, although I was so sick at heart, and I asked why she was treating my gift to her in that way. She said--but I told you what she said. If you want the honest truth, Nettie--it's the first time I ever let on about a woman in a matter of this kind--she did all she knew to make me believe that it wasn't Walter after all."
"Made love to you, do you mean?"
"Like the very deuce. Said she was burning the fichu because the
sight of it in the glass over the mantel-piece made her desperate at my
treatment of her, and--and so on. I've known women throw themselves at
a fellow's head, but--by George! And I might have been fool enough,
Lord knows! if it hadn't been for feeling the way I did."
"If I recollect aright, you said she did go with you?"
"But not that way, of course not. Sit still, Nettie, until I've
finished. Oh, I give you leave to be jealous of Geraldine Balcombe all you
like. That won't hurt."
"Billy, you say she asked you to run away with her, and you
said--you distinctly said--you did."
"Madam, I said nothing of the kind. Stay here and be nice to me,
and I'll tell you exactly what occurred. After we had been talking in the
little room for a bit--"
"How much of a bit?"
"I don't know. But the mornings were still early, and all those
windows showed us the dawn coming. There had been a moon, as she says in
that precious tale of hers, but it had set long ago. She was frightened
lest we should be found up, and you may be sure I didn't care about it
either. Indeed, I was raging to get clear of the house and her, and the
whole blessed business, especially when I thought of Walter coming home in
a few hours. As you know, I had no luggage with me. I was free to go
directly I got an opportunity, and I made up my mind to slip off somehow so
as to catch an early train across the fields. She seemed to know that I was
trying to get away from her, for she said if I wanted to go she could show
me how to do so without disturbing the house. I was so glad of any chance
that I accepted the offer, and when I had fetched my boots and things, she
took me down that very staircase and through the door which she says she
saw me and Lexie elope by. She knew that door well, evidently, for she had
the key with her, and locked and unlocked it as easily as if she did it
every day. The nurse may say she heard it bang, but it didn't bang that
time."
"And she locked herself outside as well as you?"
"I thought she would say good-bye there, but she took a hat and
cloak from a peg and threw them on, and said she'd show me how to get out
of the park
without passing the lodges. That's the way she's getting in now, I expect, when Walter fancies he has guarded every point. There's a door in the park wall where it joins the rectory grounds; it's for the use of the rector when he likes, and she had the key. That's where she let me out, and that's where she made her last try; but I mustn't say any more about that. It still wanted nearly two hours to the train. She said she could slip into the rectory and up to her room--by another secret way, I suppose--and get some clothes. She offered to be my servant--my anything--if I would take her with me. Oh, but I am a cad to tell on her, though she is what she is! I got away somehow, and struck across country, and walked I don't know where, picked up the railway a dozen miles off, and took the train at a little station I'd never been to before. And as soon as I got to London I fell in with a friend just off to shoot wild sheep and goats in the Himalayas, and I got my rifles and things ready in a day and went with him--the beginning of long wanderings. And I hardly saw an English paper, and never heard any news, and never wanted to. And--and I think that's all, Nettie."
She put her arms round his neck, and kissed him, and thanked him. She
said she didn't think any husband could have told the honest truth more
honestly.
It was a great house, in more ways than one; and Nettie,
whose passion for things English was far greater than that of which she had
accused her husband, walked about with clasped hands and head thrown back,
uttering sighs and "ohs" and other senseless ejaculations, in a
state of rapture too profound for words.
The hall--the great hall, as it was properly termed--had been
left almost exactly as it was in what Billy called his time, and was
impressive enough for anything--especially in the dull light of a
threatening storm which had unexpectedly followed upon the bright morning.
It was not much unlike a church,--with a fireplace in it and all the
pews turned out. There was a screen like a rood-screen at the lower end,
dividing it from an outer vestibule; at the upper end the massive
staircase, down which Lexie had walked like a princess at her husband's
side, branched into
galleries running down the sides. The windows were mullioned and filled with old glass, partly stained; the floor was of chequered stone; the roof a mass of oak beams, spreading fan-wise in all directions. From the latter--very high up and shadowed--hung banners, beautifully dilapidated. There were trophies of arms on the walls, genuinely mediæval; rows upon rows of family portraits, with authentic dates to them, historic and notorious; heraldic insignia on every hand, indisputably testifying that the Desaillys were an ancient and a noble family. Altogether, there was a fine, solemn, feudal air about the place, calculated to awe a colonial person seeing it for the first time.
Having been so lately used for the coming-of-age festivities, dust and
cobwebs were not conspicuous; but the air struck cold and had a musty,
mouldy taint, causing Nettie to cry "Pah!" and put a perfumed
handkerchief to her nose.
"It is the very smell of murdered bodies," she declared,
shivering.
"How do you know what the smell of murdered bodies is like?"
her husband asked her.
"Oh, by instinct," she replied.
"It's the smell of old age," he said, sniffing and peering
about him. "Powers above! It looks as if it might have been like this
for a thousand years."
They opened the shutters of the state drawing-room which had been used
in Lexie's honour on the night Wingate so well remembered--a place of
com-
fortless splendour such as may still be found in certain royal palaces which the changes of fifty years or so have respectfully passed by. Here was desolation again. The floral carpet and much of the satiny furniture had been removed, and most of the precious ornaments; what were left stood shrouded in bags of calico, bulging and shapeless. But the chandeliers, that weighed tons, and the cunning carved work of the sumptuous ceiling and doorways, were exposed so were the panels of tapestry said to be three hundred years old, and the famous pictures that carried history on their faces--faces of Vandyke ladies in their stately and beautiful Henrietta-Maria costumes; Lely ladies in flowing and formless draperies, kept from flowing away altogether by a mere taper-fingered hand; Gainsboroughs, Sir Joshuas, Romneys, with huge heads and little scarves and fichus--Lexie's noble predecessors in that most select of county families.
"Oh!" sighed Nettie Wingate, to all this forsaken beauty,
"what a drawing-room I could make of this! Billy, what
do you say--?"
But when they went upstairs she was afraid to repeat the suggestion.
Here, where the rooms had not been opened for the coming-of-age guests, the
utterly undomestic, deserted, haunted-house look of everything made the
thought of the vulgarest Melbourne villa grateful. Anything like a home
seemed inconceivable in that forlorn and fusty wilderness
where rats squeaked in daytime, and spiders' webs, drawn over the heavily leaded windows, shut wholesome sunshine out. In every room carpets were rolled up, and only the heavy furniture left in place--except in that most interesting room of all at the end of the west wing, identified with Lexie in the past, and with the rope and candle in the present, the place of the mystery which it was the object of their expedition to solve. Here what carpet the moth had left still clung to the floor, and curtains of flowered silk damask, that had been old and faded in her time, still depended from the canopy of Lexie's bed--a monumental structure of mahogany that must have been built where it stood--and from the cornice spanning the bay of the big window, which almost filled one end of the room and was the only light in it. The great wardrobes and presses, the bow-legged toilet table, with its oval mirror swinging between tall shafts, the sofa and the escritoire, the very mattress and pillows of the vast bed, with the satin quilt drawn over them--everything that she had used during her brief occupancy of the apartment--seemed to have been left unaltered; and Billy looked at all with a full heart and eyes that his wife did not care to meet for a few minutes. The rooms that had been Walter's dressing-room and the nurseries, adjoining each other in the passage outside, communicated with hers by one door only, the only one in the great room, corresponding at the one end to the only
window at the other. The long side walls were unbroken save by the chimney-piece, which was the usual massive structure, sixteenth-century woodwork, with ornamentation reaching to the ceiling, the hearth wide and the shaft spacious, giving a far-off view of a disc of sky. The most casual inspection showed the impossibility of any living thing, save birds, being harboured there. The floor, as Wingate had been informed, had been taken up in various places and put down again, the old carpet now hiding the scars the window casements were fastened; and when he went along the wainscot, rapping sharply on every panel, and standing still to listen for the effect, the sound died immediately, with no hint of inward echo.
"We've done that," the constable observed with a smile.
"There's nothing there, sir. Solid as a rock."
"What!" cried Wingate, "do you believe in ghosts,
too?"
"No, sir; but I believe in the evidence of my senses. Those walls
don't hide anything. I've proved it."
They were lined from top to bottom with wood panelling, that had been
painted white and gilded in places, and was now soiled and tarnished. In
five of the panels, three on one side and two on the other, the latter
flanking the central chimney-piece, pictures were embedded as in fixed
frames. They were so old that it was impossible to tell whether, as works
of art, they were good or bad, for hardly an outline was
visible under the varnish, which seemed to be many coats thick. Their blackened hues contrasted oddly with the white paint, suggesting that the latter was a recent innovation in the chronology of the house, and probably hid the beautiful texture and colour of old oak or other valuable wood. The visitors passed them over with a glance.
"Well," said Wingate to the constable, "I think that's
all for the present. The place is empty now, whatever it may have been last
night; the windows are secure, and we will lock the door behind us safely.
When we have had something to eat, and gathered together a few things that
we may want, we will return here, and stay in this room till morning. And
if you will meet us with the keys, and share our watch, I shall be
infinitely obliged to you. Of course I'll make it well worth your
while."
"Don't you think, sir," suggested the constable, "that
it'd be as well for somebody to watch outside as well as in? That fellow
with the rope, that you saw in the garden, wants attending to."
"Certainly. I mean to keep a good look-out from the window. There
will be a splendid moon if these clouds clear off. The fewer we are the
better in a case of this sort. You don't catch fish if you make a splash in
the water."
"No, sir. But I think it's my business to look after the man
rather than the ghost, if it's all the same to you."
Wingate agreed that a policeman must be allowed to know his own business
best, and had a shrewd suspicion that this particular policeman would
rather deal single-handed with fifty corporeal thieves of the most
desperate character than with one indeterminate spectre lighting its way
about the deserted house with a harmless spectral candle. So it was
arranged that he should patrol the garden, with a trusty friend for
company, while husband and wife held the fort within. At six